by Alex Gerlis
He said that train suited him better and bought a ticket before spending much of the next three hours or so in cafes around the station, making sausages, cheese rolls and foul-tasting coffee last as long as possible. In one cafe he found a table at the back which felt safe – there was nothing behind him and he had a good view of the two entrances. Looking up he saw a table in front of him was occupied by a mother and her son, the boy probably the same age as Henry and looking not dissimilar to him, though it pained him to realise he could no longer be sure what his son looked like.
* * *
‘Easier said than done, of course, but where possible it’s advisable to try and stick to local trains, especially when travelling into cities and larger towns. They tend to be packed with commuters – especially early in the morning and in the early evening. Less security also… and sometimes the platforms they arrive at won’t even have sentries on them.’
Prince had remembered that from his training when he’d first joined the Service, almost a year and a half previously.
‘…try and stick to local trains…’
He’d left his last cafe just before half past six and headed onto the station concourse, eventually finding the queue for the quarter past seven Munich service. He’d noticed a large map near another platform, which was unusual: it was rare to see maps in public places these days. This one was a detailed rail map of the Protectorate and of much of the Reich, and he looked for the route to Munich. He was especially interested in the stations the clerk had said they’d stop at: Regensburg, Neufahrn, Landshut, Freising… the latter appearing closer to Munich than he’d expected, maybe twenty miles judging by the scale of the map.
The journey was a particularly uncomfortable one. The train was crowded and although he’d found a seat by the window two other people were crammed next to him, meaning three people were on a seat designed for two. The window rattled and let in a draught, the noise meant he couldn’t rest properly and the carriage was bathed in a very dim yellow light which made it hard to focus on anything. There’d been a check when they were about ten minutes out of Prague station and a more thorough one at Furth im Wald just after they’d crossed the border. Fortunately the railway police seemed to pay more attention to the Czech passengers.
At times the train stopped between stations in the dead of the night and what must have been the low cloud, meaning he had no idea of where they were. Behind him a mother was anxiously trying to calm a crying baby, making more noise herself than the baby. For much of the journey he doubted the train was doing more than twenty or thirty miles per hour.
It was still dark when the train stopped at Landshut but half an hour later when they pulled into Freising it was much lighter, though the Bavarian countryside was still in shadow. It was seven o’clock as he hurried from the train, relieved to see a dozen other people do so. He went straight from the platform to the small ticket area and asked to be shown to the toilets, where he remained for a few minutes. When he came out he asked the one clerk on duty what time the next train was to Munich.
‘Didn’t you just come off the train that was going there?’
A policeman who was standing nearby looked up and took one step towards him.
‘Yes, but I felt unwell… my stomach… I needed fresh air and to use your facilities.’
‘Very well…’ The man looked at him as if he was mad. ‘The next train is at 7.25. I doubt you’ll get a seat though… and you’ll need to purchase a new ticket.’
Prince knew it would be odd if he didn’t complain so made a brief play of being annoyed at being made to pay for another ticket. As he walked back to the platform he became aware he was being followed.
‘Papers.’
It was the policeman who’d been standing by the ticket counter. He frowned as he studied the papers, Prince by now familiar with the look that accompanied such a task: a look at the papers, a glance at him, repeated.
‘You don’t have a kennkarte?’
‘No, I had a Swiss passport but I lost it. Those papers explain everything.’
The policeman didn’t look convinced. He was stamping his feet, his eyes lined and heavy with fatigue. Behind him a train was slowly approaching the platform, the 7.25 for Munich. One more doubting look and he reluctantly thrust the papers back towards Prince.
The ticket clerk had been right: it was standing room only on the hour-long journey into Munich’s main station, stopping at a host of suburban ones on the way. The passengers were so crammed Prince had to clutch onto an overhead handrail, the odour of unwashed bodies and tobacco smoke enveloping him, which at least meant the railway police hardly bothered them – on the entire journey he just saw one and he wasn’t asked to show his papers.
‘…and sometimes the platforms they arrive at won’t even have sentries on them.’
Which was the case when they pulled into Munich; there was clear evidence of recent bomb damage and the train stopped short of the station. A guard told them to alight and walk across the rubble onto Arnulfstrasse.
He headed east, surprised at the level of destruction and the sorry state of the city. What had been the birthplace of Nazism now looked like its burial ground. After walking for twenty minutes he stopped at a cafe, its windows boarded up, a sign on the door assuring customers they were open and to ‘please enter’. He sat in a corner, sipping an acorn and chicory drink that had been sold as coffee and eating black bread and a boiled egg. Two men on the next table were talking anxiously, every so often their voices dropping, ‘…and her sister’s family, six of them killed … and Heinz in accounts? All of them apparently … his son’s in the east … poor sod … if he’s still alive of course…’
It was now nine thirty; for no good reason he felt ten o’clock would be a good time to arrive at the consulate. When he finished his drink he paid and asked the woman behind the counter if she could direct him to Ottostrasse.
‘Five minutes’ walk, ten at the very most.’
It was just before ten when he entered the heavily guarded consulate. He told a guard he had an appointment with a Fräulein Schneider and was directed to the rear of the building, on the ground floor.
Sigrid Schneider had her own office, her name painted in black Gothic script on the frosted-glass panel of the half-open door. She was behind her desk, somewhat older than Inge Brunner and a heavy cardigan draped over her shoulders.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I have just arrived from Prague. Inge Brunner at the—’
‘…close the door now!’ She spoke urgently and softly, almost in a whisper. She got up, ushered him towards a chair near her desk and opened the door to check the corridor before closing it again.
‘Have you come alone?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you weren’t followed?’
Prince hesitated; he wasn’t sure how diligent he’d been since arriving in Munich. He was exhausted and had probably let his guard down. ‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘You need to leave now.’
‘Fräulein Brunner said you’d be able to give me papers to get into Switzerland, she said—’
‘I know what she said… she sent me a cable yesterday afternoon.’ She was spitting the words out, angry and unsettled. ‘Then this morning we heard from Prague that she was arrested last night, by the Gestapo. Our head of mission himself told me, less than an hour ago. He’s aware I know her. If they find out she sent this cable—’
‘…but can they arrest a Swiss national?’
‘Why not? Those bastards can do what the hell they want. Inge’s not a diplomat, so she has no immunity. Look, it’s far too dangerous you being here. You must leave now.’
‘But what am I to do? I can’t stay in Munich and—’
Sigrid Schneider had come over to him and was signalling for him to get up. ‘If I do anything to help you – anything – then I’m putting myself at risk. Please… go.’
She opened the office door and hurried him out.
*
* *
They broke Tomáš – in more ways than one it had to be said – late on the Tuesday night. The Gestapo’s top interrogator and its top torturer arrived at Bredauergasse somewhat later than expected in Prague on the Monday, which Tomáš was told was due to their train being delayed by bomb damage. The interrogator worked on him first and for much of the day Tomáš felt he coped quite well. He’d decided to tell them about a resistance cell operating in the south of the city, one he was suspected would have been broken by now anyway.
The information he imparted – very reluctantly – didn’t satisfy the Gestapo’s top interrogator for long. He became quite specific about the information he wanted, as opposed to information Tomáš wanted to give him.
Where, for instance, was Tomáš heading when they arrested him on the bridge? What did he know about an agent called Zora? And what could he tell them about Pilsen? Tomáš played ignorant to all that but he knew the game was up when they told him one of the men they’d captured in Pilsen had admitted – after some persuasion – there’d been an Englishman in Pilsen who’d been taken to Prague and they now believed he had something to do with this Englishman and please could he be so good as to tell them everything about him, starting with where he was now?
He assured them he didn’t know anything about such a man and then someone came in and beat him up. Tomáš assumed this was the Gestapo’s top torturer but he couldn’t have been more wrong. He was the warm-up man, the banderillero to the matador. The torturer was a surprisingly elderly looking man with the appearance of a retired science teacher. He shuffled into the cell wearing a brown work coat and spent an inordinate amount of time arranging electrical equipment that was standing on a large table. Occasionally he turned round to Tomáš and looked at him as if sizing up a piece of machinery. When he was ready he called the guards into the cell. Tomáš was unshackled from his chair, stripped naked and hung from manacles on the wall. The man then carefully attached leads to various parts of Tomáš’s body. Once satisfied he turned the electricity on. It was a brief burst, no more than a few seconds, but enough to jolt his body violently, throwing him against the wall and making his insides feel as if they were on fire.
Tomáš noticed they’d been joined in the room by the interrogator.
‘Would he now care to tell him about the man from Pilsen – the Englishman?’
Before he could answer there was another burst of electricity, this one much longer, and at one stage he blacked out. When he came to, it took him a minute or so to recover his senses but then there was another, even longer burst of electricity. When he recovered from that the agony was indescribable and he found himself gabbling out the address on Beethoven Strasse. They took him down after that and strapped him to a bed. An hour later he was hauled out of it and shackled again to the wall.
They’d been to the attic he was told and although it was empty it had clearly been recently occupied. If he was telling the truth then the Englishman couldn’t be far away. Someone else must be helping him.
Before Tomáš could say anything there was another burst of electricity and then the torturer spent a while opening a wooden box and carefully examining its contents, eventually selecting what appeared to be a large pair of pliers. Moments later he was cutting through the ligaments surrounding his knees and Tomáš was shouting out the name Inge Brunner, imploring them to visit her at the Swiss consulate before it was too late.
* * *
All Prince could do was walk around the city trying to appear purposeful and on his way somewhere, alert to any checkpoints, careful to cross the road before turning corners, terrified out of his mind.
The unrelenting grey of the city was broken only by the ubiquitous blood-red banners hanging vertically from buildings, swaying gently in the cold breeze, their swastikas standing out with the urgency of an exclamation mark. Munich was in stark contrast to Berlin, which came across as restrained and even handsome in comparison. He’d somehow expected Munich to be a more foreboding place, but it seemed to lack the menace and cold steel of Berlin. Here people looked shrunken and almost defeated. They looked exhausted as they shuffled past him. Their skin had a grey pallor, eyes red no doubt from nights disturbed by air raids and maybe from tears.
There was a smell of decay too, one that was also hard to pinpoint but it reminded him of walking through the fields of Lincolnshire a few weeks after a successful harvest, when some vegetables had been left to rot.
That would be a good point to make to Gilbey, he thought. Germany had reaped their harvest and was now facing famine.
He’d hurried out of the consulate and headed to the river. He thought about crossing the Isar on the one bridge he could see that was still open to pedestrians but then decided he’d be better off turning round and going back to the station. His best option was probably to get out of Munich, taking a series of local trains as he’d been trained to, heading west and south, edging closer to the Swiss border.
A hundred yards from the station he noticed the area was teeming with police. He slowly walked round the building; on every pavement, every path, at every entrance police were stopping all pedestrians and checking their papers.
He had no idea whether this security was for him but it looked too intense to be routine and he felt it was too dangerous to put it to the test. He headed back towards the centre of Munich and allowed himself the luxury of an hour in the same boarded-up cafe he’d stopped at in the morning. He sipped his acorn chicory drink and ate a sausage with a cheese roll. When he sensed he’d been in the cafe just long enough he returned to the station hoping the security had been relaxed, but if anything it was more intense: as far as he could tell the uniformed police had now been joined by Gestapo, some of whom were questioning groups of men who’d been pulled aside from the checkpoints.
He turned round once more and headed back to the centre, aware his wandering around the city had been so erratic that had anyone taken even a passing interest in him he’d have been pulled over by now.
He sat on a bench in Karlsplatz to gather his thoughts. His predicament was a desperate one. He was carrying the useless identities of an Irishman, a Czech and a Swiss, which sounded like the opening line of a joke but was actually far from amusing. If he risked using any of them he’d be in trouble and if he was searched they’d discover a semi-automatic pistol.
Even to board a local bus let alone pass a random checkpoint he needed a new identity, but in Munich on a cold Wednesday afternoon in February, in the fifth year of the war, such things were not easy to find. He wondered about taking a bus and heading west, trying to get closer to the Swiss border. But he realised it was getting late. The buses stopped early and he’d still be risking travelling with little decent identification.
He needed a plan and soon one began to form in his mind.
* * *
‘Rabbits.’
Rabbits – or more specifically the habitat of rabbits– came up during his training as an agent at the end of 1942. He was at an isolated farm in Derbyshire where he was taught about the day-to-day life of a spy by an agreeable Scotsman called Hendrie who liked to use long walks through the countryside to impart his wisdom.
Hendrie had been quiet for a while as they climbed over a stile and around a damp field. They’d been approaching a small wood when Hendrie had said ‘rabbits’ and Prince looked up, expecting to see them hopping around in front of him. He said he couldn’t see any.
‘Didn’t mean that – I meant it is instructive to learn about how rabbits survive.’
Prince said nothing in reply: Hendrie had a habit of starting what he called his tutorials with what were, in essence, riddles.
‘Rabbits live in a hostile environment. They survive by seeking out and creating an environment – warrens – that protects them from predators. When you are in a hostile environment and fear you’re in danger, you must seek out your own warrens.’
They’d entered the wood now, which was larger than it had seemed at first; soo
n it was quite gloomy. ‘Cities are full of convenient warrens and I’m not even referring to perhaps obvious ones like sewers or other tunnels. Warrens are places like hospitals, the larger hotels, department stores… busy places with multiple entrances and exits, with lots of corridors, staircases, nooks and crannies and rooms and areas that may be little used and easy to hide in.
‘Department stores are jolly good, but of course they close at a certain time and that may be a problem, though I have known of agents who choose them to hide in overnight. Hospitals are full of warrens but one tends to need a good reason to be there. A large hotel is my preference, open all the time and all kinds of useful warrens like service corridors and back staircases, and they usually have at least one or two levels below the ground – for laundries and what have you. Keep that in mind, eh? You never know when you’ll be a rabbit hiding from its predators.’
* * *
It was a short walk from Karlsplatz to Promenadeplatz where the Bayerischer Hof hotel occupied much of a block on the north side of the square. Prince paused while he waited for a tram to pass and watched the hotel. The main entrance on Promenadeplatz was busy and at least two men in uniform were checking everyone going in. The hotel also ran down a side street, and about halfway down it he spotted a bar.
It was already five o’clock and the bar was dimly lit and quiet. The barman was quite elderly and wearing a creased white jacket, going through the motions of polishing glasses. A smartly dressed man was on his own at one end of the bar and the only other occupants were four noisy men at a table by the window. The elderly barman asked Prince what he’d like to drink.
‘What local beer would you recommend?’
The barman shrugged as if he was too tired to answer. ‘These days we only have local beer, and not many of those, to be honest. We do have Paulaner – I’d suggest that.’