The Scarlet Impostor

by Dennis Wheatley

  The Dutchman muttered something to his companion and they began to heave aside the heavy cases above Gregory until that in which he was crouching lay exposed. Next moment one of the men called out something sharply, and although he could not understand the actual words Gregory instinctively knew that the fellow was not speaking to his companion but was ordering him from his hiding-place. Then the long pole was thrust down again and jabbed him on the leg.

  ‘It was useless to lie there any longer. With a muttered ‘Guten Abend’ to the men who had found him he slowly crawled out and stretched himself.

  They returned his greeting quite civilly, motioned him to climb out of the wagon and escorted him along the railway track to the station buildings, where he was led into a small office.

  One of the men said something in Dutch to an official who was seated there. The official in his turn looked across at Gregory and spoke in German.

  ‘Hullo! Another deserter, eh? Well, you’re out of your worst troubles, at all events, my friend; but we shall have to intern you here for the duration of the war.’

  14

  Out of the Game

  Gregory knew quite well that according to the laws of international warfare any soldier, sailor, airman or other member of the fighting forces of the combatant nations who penetrated into a neutral country in uniform and without an express invitation to do so was liable to internment. He had hoped that he might have remained undetected until he was far enough over the frontier to leave the wagon when it had been shunted to some siding and bribe someone to provide him with a change of clothes. Once out of uniform he would have been able to get back to England without difficulty as soon as he had managed to get into touch with London through diplomatic channels; but making his way home presented an infinitely more difficult problem now that he had been caught.

  For a moment he thought of telling the Dutch official that he was not a German at all, and asking to be sent under escort to the British Legation at The Hague, but he was not sufficiently au fait with the neutrality laws to take the risk. Since he was in German uniform to do so would have been as good as admitting that he was a British secret agent, and to ask the Dutch to facilitate his reaching the British Legation immediately after he had escaped out of Germany might be considered by them as a request to contravene their neutrality. Such an act would certainly be contrary to the interests of Germany and advantageous to Britain, so instead of helping him they might quite possibly lock him up in a fortress and refuse to allow him to communicate with the British Legation in any way. He therefore decided to say nothing for the moment, but to let them continue to imagine that he was an ordinary German deserter.

  ‘I quite understand, Mynheer, that I must be interned,’ he said, ‘but I am very hungry and I am wounded in the leg. Would it be possible for me to have some food and the attention of a doctor?’

  ‘Certainly,’ replied the Dutchman. ‘We have already established a small concentration-camp outside Nijmegen for German prisoners. Directly you arrive there they will provide you with food and medical attention.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mynheer, but is Nijmegen very far away?’ he asked in a tired voice.

  The Dutchman smiled. ‘This is Nijmegen, or, rather, a suburb of it. The actual city is about four miles distant, but the concentration-camp is only about two miles from here.’

  As he spoke he signed to a couple of Dutch policemen, who had come in while he and Gregory had been talking, and gave them a brief order in Dutch. The policemen led Gregory out and through the station buildings to another exit, where a police car was waiting. Ten minutes later they were handing him over to an elderly Dutch Army Major in a large, barracklike building which had apparently been a school, but which now contained the offices of the concentration-camp.

  On the Major’s questioning him in German Gregory produced the papers of Johannes Heckt and was duly registered in his name. The Major was gruff and surly, as he had been pulled out of bed to receive Gregory, and since there was still an hour to go to dawn the kitchen staff were not yet up; but on Gregory’s asking whether it would be possible for him to have something to eat the Major gave instructions to an orderly, who left the room to return some minutes later with a mug of steaming cocoa and a large hunk of bread and cheese. Having telephoned for a doctor, the Major went back to bed, leaving Gregory in charge of the Sergeant of the Guard.

  The doctor, a fat, cheerful little man, turned up half an hour later. He bathed Gregory’s wound, dressed it and assured him in fluent German that there was nothing for him to worry about, as the wound was quite clean and with rest and attention should be healing well inside a week. He congratulated Gregory on having succeeded in getting out of Germany, as he seemed to think that the German Army would have a hard time of it whichever way they might endeavour to break the ring which now encircled the Third Reich.

  The Dutch soldiers who acted as warders also voted him a sensible fellow for bringing his personal participation in the war to so premature a conclusion by smuggling himself into Holland, and told him jokingly, in halting German, that he might find prison existence a dull one if the war went on for several years but that at all events his life would be safe.

  As he listened to these pleasantries Gregory appreciated anew the truth of the old adage: ‘There’s many a true word spoken in jest.’ To be held prisoner for any length of time would be more than irksome and it was not going to be by any means an easy job to get himself out of this internment camp, but at least his life was safe. They little knew, he reflected, how near he had been to losing it on so many occasions during the last forty-eight hours.

  With this comforting thought in his mind, he allowed himself to be led upstairs and down a long corridor on the third floor, where the sergeant opened a door and motioned him through the doorway into the room that was to be his cell.

  He had already confirmed his original belief that the place had been a school until quite recently. It had been a large, expensive, high-class school for the sons of wealthy Dutchmen, but in view of the possibility of Germany’s making a sudden onslaught through Holland in an attempt to turn the Maginot Line it had been considered to be too near the frontier for safety and the boys had been evacuated to the interior of Holland.

  It was evident that each boy had enjoyed the luxury of a separate study-cum-bedroom on the upper floors, and these now made excellent cells, each being furnished with a bookcase, armchair, table, writing-desk, washstand and a folding bed which disappeared into the wall during the day, thus providing much greater comfort than any prisoner had a right to expect. The only alteration necessary to adapt them for their present purpose had been the affixing of iron bars to their windows and stout locks to their doors.

  As soon as the sergeant had left him Gregory slowly undressed and crawled into bed. In spite of the uneasy dozes he had snatched while hidden in the wagon he was incredibly weary after the strain and exertions which he had undergone, and he fell at once into a heavy sleep.

  With kindly consideration his Dutch gaolers did not wake him at the usual hour next morning but let him sleep on, and he was still asleep when the doctor came to visit him at four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Having re-dressed his wound with the aid of an orderly the doctor told him that he could remain in bed for the time being but that they would see about fitting him with some crutches on the following day, as there was no reason why he should not get up provided he did not use his wounded leg.

  The cocoa and bread and cheese in the early hours of the morning had done little but stay his hunger, so he again asked for food, and half an hour later was brought the first square meal he had enjoyed since he had lunched with Herr Rheinhardt in Traben-Trabach. That had been on Tuesday, September 12th, and it was now Friday, the 15th; yet so much had happened since that the memory seemed months away.

  At six o’clock a short dark officer in the uniform of an Army Captain came to see him. The captain had rather sleepy-looking eyes but a pleasant, genial smile. Introd
ucing himself by the name of Bimigen he opened the conversation by inquiring in German after Gregory’s wound and establishing friendly relations by offering him a cigarette.

  Gregory accepted the cigarette, and reminding himself that although he was now wearing a pair of pyjamas with which he had been issued instead of Johannes’ uniform he was still supposed to be a German soldier, he replied with the deference and in the tone which would be expected from a private talking to an officer.

  The Dutchman sat down on the end of Gregory’s bed and told him that it was part of his duty to discover the methods by which German deserters penetrated into Holland. He stated that he could not, of course, compel Gregory to give him this information, but explained that other things besides deserters might come through by the same means and that the Dutch Government was extremely anxious to protect the neutrality of Holland.

  Had the circumstances been different and Gregory a genuine deserter he would have told the sleepy-eyed Captain to go and teach his grandmother to suck eggs, as he knew perfectly well what the game was, and that the Captain was in the Dutch Intelligence Service. He already knew exactly how Gregory had escaped from Germany but he wanted to enter into a nice, friendly little chat in which the newly-arrived deserter might disclose facts about the state of things on the other side of the frontier. A private soldier might not know more than what he had seen with the eyes in his head, but even the dumbest recruit could not have helped noticing whether German troops were being concentrated on the Dutch border and, if so, to what regiments the men to whom he had recently talked in that area belonged.

  As it was, Gregory was perfectly willing to give the Dutch man any information that he could, and in consequence he allowed the friendly Captain to pump him to his heart’s content, fell into every trap laid for him as though he were a complete dunderhead and answered truthfully every question except those relating to the circumstances in which he had been wounded in the leg and his own particular activities in the German Army.

  Thinking that it might mislead the Captain to say that he had received his wound in Poland, as this could be interpreted to imply that German troops were being transferred from the Polish Front to the borders of Holland, he said that he had been wounded in one of the early skirmishes in between the Siegfried and Maginot Lines and had been evacuated to a hospital in Cologne. He went on to say that after this experience he had decided that he did not want to take any further risk of being killed or wounded, and in consequence had taken French leave from the hospital at the earliest possible opportunity and had persuaded one of the pickets at the station to let him through into the goods-yard on the pretext that he wanted to see a friend of his who was working there.

  The Dutchman departed entirely satisfied, and after another good meal at half-past seven Gregory was left undisturbed for the rest of the evening. The lights clicked off automatically at nine o’clock and, turning over, he got in an excellent night’s rest.

  Next morning the doctor came again, fitted him with crutches and told him that he might get up that afternoon. He had hardly gone when a soldier warder appeared and told Gregory that there was a gentleman to see him from the German Legation; whereupon a tall, thin, fair man came hurrying into the cell and the warder left them together.

  The newcomer displayed none of the geniality of the sleepy-eyed Dutch Captain. It appeared that his job was to obtain particulars of all German soldiers interned in Holland, and he wasted no time in beginning his interrogation of Gregory, who at once handed over Johannes Heckt’s papers.

  The thin man noted their contents in a little black book, after which he snapped out: ‘And now, you scum, let me tell you something. You have been guilty of the greatest crime which any man can commit against his country. Our glorious Third Reich has been attacked, and needs every one of its sons to defend it under the leadership of our great Führer, Adolf Hitler. And you, a soldier of the invincible German Army, have chosen this, of all times, at which to become a deserter. You think that you are safe here for the duration of the war, nicht wahr? Well, that is so. But there will be an end to the war, and when Germany emerges victorious we shall bring you back and shoot you. Let that thought remain uppermost in your mind, day after day, as you skulk in cowardly safety.

  ‘In the meantime I will give you something else to think about. Now that I have your regimental number it will be quite easy for us to trace your relatives. You have a wife, so it appears from your papers, and there are doubtless others near to you. We know how to deal with traitors. Your wife and your relations shall pay something on your account. A family that breeds a deserter cannot be a good German family, and is only fit to congregate with Jews, so we shall put them all into a concentration-camp. Think of that, Schweinhund, while you are eating the good food that these fools of Dutchmen will give you!’

  Gregory did not know whether to laugh or to hurl his crutches at the thin-faced, vicious brute. It was quite clear that had he really been Johannes, that unfortunate’s family would have been in for a very rough time. As it was, however, the real Johannes’ regiment was certain to have been notified already that he was in hospital at Cologne, so that the mistake would soon be discovered and rectified. In the meantime it was up to Gregory to act his part, so he pretended great distress and repentance of his folly, begging the man from the Legation to spare his family.

  The rabid Nazi was adamant in his refusal to listen to any plea for mercy, and evidently took a sadistic delight in the mental torture which he believed himself to be inflicting. For five minutes he openly boasted of the horrors of the German concentration-camp and the fact that now the Reich was at war even less food could be spared for the human offal inhabiting them, so that it was quite certain that the death-rate would increase enormously.

  He then banged on the door for the orderly to let him out and, with a last sadistic thrust about the guards having free access to the women prisoners of the camps, so that if his wife survived he, ‘Johannes’, would probably find himself presented with a new family after the war when he was brought back to Germany to be shot, he gave a loud ‘Heil Hitler!’ and took himself off.

  ‘It’s you who’ll get shot after the war, laddie, not me,’ murmured Gregory as his venomous visitor left him. The war was being waged for the sole purpose of stamping out just such reptiles, and if the Allies should prove too soft-hearted to put him and his kind up against a brick wall there would still be plenty of decent people left in his own country to see to it that they got their just deserts. But for all that, Gregory realised on thinking things over that the Nazi’s visit might be made to fit in admirably with a plan that he was already quietly maturing.

  That afternoon he hobbled downstairs and met his fellow prisoners in the recreation-room. As the war was still young there were only about twenty of them, and he found that they were divided into two bitterly hostile camps.

  Seven of them were airmen who had lost their way while night flying, and had been forced down and interned in neutral Holland. These, led by a couple of rabid Nazis, were patriotic Germans. The remainder were all deserters who had crossed the frontier either through fear of being sent to the Front or because of a deep-rooted hostility to the Hitler régime. The airmen cursed their luck at having become prisoners so early in the war; the others were only too glad to be sitting peacefully in Holland.

  News spreads with mysterious swiftness amongst prisoners, and it was already known that Gregory was a deserter, so he was greeted with cheerful friendliness by the other deserters, and with angry looks of silent hostility by the airmen. Several of the former group were red-hot Communists and spoke openly of their hope that Germany would be defeated, since in their view the war was being waged not against the German people but against Adolf Hitler and his fellow-assassins.

  Having sounded Gregory as to his political views one of the Communists began to mutter darkly about the prospect of German Communist revolution while warning him that they must be careful what they said in case the Nazi airmen were to
get hold of anything and find some means of communicating it to the German authorities; but after some little conversation Gregory came to the conclusion that the fellow did not really know anything and was indulging merely in wish-fulfilment.

  Back in his cell that evening he wrote a brief letter which he addressed to His Britannic Majesty’s Minister at The Hague, and the following morning he applied for an interview with the Commandant of the camp.

  His request was granted, and at twelve o’clock he was taken to the Major who had received him two nights before. Gregory handed him the letter and asked that it might be forwarded without delay to the British Legation.

  The Major was an elderly man with a fine, flowing moustache and—now that he had not been roused from his bed in the middle of the night—a kindly manner. Gregory formed the impression that he was not a regular officer but a reservist who had been given this job of Prison Commandant on account of the excellent German that he spoke.

  He twiddled Gregory’s letter between his thumbs for a moment, then said: ‘Why should you, a German soldier, wish to communicate with the British Legation?’

  ‘Because, sir,’ Gregory replied, ‘I have relations in England and I’m very anxious to find out what has happened to them since the outbreak of the war.’

  ‘Humph,’ grunted the Major. ‘I don’t think I can send your letter. To do so would come under the official category of permitting you to communicate with an enemy country, and my connivance at such a thing would, strictly speaking, be an infringement of Dutch neutrality.’

  Gregory knew that this neutrality question was going to be the snag whatever method he might adopt in an effort to get out of the concentration camp by legitimate means, while if he tried to escape and failed, the Dutch would put him in a fortress whence there would be still less chance of regaining his freedom before the end of the war. He proceeded, therefore, to use guile.