The Black Baroness gs-4

by Dennis Wheatley

  On the Monday morning he had been consoling himself with the belief that he probably had at least three or four more days to go before such a calamity was liable to overtake him, but in the evening he received an extremely rude shock. With a glum face the warder told him that a German armoured column had penetrated to within five miles of the city. True, a company of tanks might be far ahead of their supporting troops but Gregory had good reason to know that wherever a German spear-head appeared its main forces very soon succeeded in following it.

  He sent an urgent request for Inspector Fockink to come and see him, then turned to the map on the wall of his cell; but he did not even need to glance at it to realise that the Dutch northern armies were now in the gravest peril. For the past three days they had been putting up a stout defence along their water-line, in spite of the fact that after the first day the Germans had achieved complete air superiority and of the sabotage which was occurring right, left and centre in their rear. But now that the point of the German wedge had practically reached the coast they were cut off from their Allies, and Gregory knew sufficient of German strategy to forecast with conviction that the enemy's spear-head would now curve north towards Utrecht, thereby encircling the Dutch and rendering their position absolutely untenable.

  The warder returned to say that Inspector Fockink was out superintending the defence of one of the street barricades and that no one had any idea if or when he would return. The bombing had temporarily stopped but the banging of hand-grenades and crackle of rifle-fire sounded considerably nearer, so in a decidedly cheerless frame of mind Gregory sat down to his supper.

  For the last forty-eight hours he had had to make do on cold tinned-foods, as most of the restaurants near by had closed down either on account of war damage to their properties or owing to scarcity of food, which was already becoming very short in Rotterdam, all supply services having been interrupted.

  While he ate his Dutch ham and sausage the warder gave him the gist of a British news bulletin which had just come in.

  The Queen of Holland had arrived safely in London; Churchill had put a motion to the House of Commons that Britain should fight on to a victorious finish, which had been carried by 381 votes to 0; and several new appointments had been announced. Amery—Secretary for India; Macdonald— Health; Lord Woolton—Food; and Bevan—Labour; while from Italy anti-British demonstrations by crowds of war-mongering young Fascists were reported in Rome.

  The news about the Queen of Holland was extremely perturbing, as it indicated pretty clearly that the Dutch goose was as good as cooked. Gregory knew that Queen Wilhelmina was a woman of great character and absolutely devoted to her people. He felt that she would never have abandoned them at such a time unless the situation was quite hopeless and she considered that she could serve them better by escaping to England and retaining her freedom than by remaining to be taken prisoner by the Germans.

  He waited up till past one in the morning hoping that Fockink would return; but the Inspector failed to do so and Gregory paced the narrow limits of his cell unable to settle to anything from the grim forebodings that now crowded in upon him.

  When he went to bed the cannonade which had been raging for four days and four nights without cessation was more furious than ever. It seemed as though Hell had been let loose in a dozen quarters of the city, and when he put out his light the room remained almost as bright as day, with a red glow from the many fires that were raging. During the previous nights it had been by no means easy to get any sleep, and now it was almost impossible, as he was haunted by the persistent thought that within another twenty-four hours he might be delivered, bound hand and foot, into the clutches of the Nazis.

  CHAPTER 16

  The 'Fury' of Rotterdam

  When Gregory roused from his fitful dozing on the Tuesday morning, in between the crashing of explosions he could hear the dull, continuous roaring of the great fires which were now consuming several portions of the city. The sky was dark and flakes of blackened ash were drifting through the bars of his broken window.

  There was no coffee for breakfast, only biscuits, red cheese and bottled beer. When the warder brought this unusual meal he said that the Germans had sabotaged the reservoirs so there was no longer any water pressure, which rendered it impossible for the fire-brigades to check the advance of the flames, but that the Police Headquarters was in no immediate danger.

  Gregory also learned that just as von Ziegler had attempted to capture or kill King Haakon the Nazis had also done their best to eliminate Queen Wilhelmina. Every place to which she had moved since the invasion had been indicated to the enemy by Fifth Columnists and it was only by the greatest good fortune that she had escaped unscarred from the innumerable air-raids directed at her personally. They had not even given up their attempts on her life when she had decided to leave for England and special squadrons had been sent to bomb the British destroyer upon which she had sailed, the previous afternoon.

  The news from Belgium was no better. The enemy had reached the Meuse from Liege to Namur and from Namur to Sedan, and were hurling in division after division in an attempt to cross the river at Dinant.

  Even more sinister, in Gregory's opinion, was the news that after hammering for four days and nights at the Franco-Luxemburg frontier the Germans had broken through from Longwy to the Moselle, thereby forming a dangerous salient right in the middle of the old Allied line.

  Further appointments to the British Cabinet had been announced, by far the most important being that of Lord Beaverbrook to a new Ministry of Aircraft Production. The War Office was calling for volunteers for a new Home Defence Force to deal with enemy parachute-landings and was preparing to resist a full-scale invasion—a certain sign that matters on the Continent must be in a positively desperate state, but, whatever the cause, it was a consolation to think that people in Britain had at last awakened to the fact that there was a war on.

  Shortly after eleven o'clock the warder made a special visit to tell Gregory that General Winkelman, the Dutch Commander-in-Chief, had surrendered, so on the face of it it seemed that Holland was out of the war; yet the perpetual din of bombs, guns and machine-gun fire, which constantly made it necessary to shout to be heard, continued unabated.

  Gregory asked again for the Inspector and learned that he had been in during the night, but only to snatch two hours' sleep in his clothes, and had then gone out again. He asked to be taken before any available authority but the warder said that everything was at sixes and sevens and that none of the police chiefs could possibly spare time to interview prisoners.

  As the hours drifted by each fresh bulletin added to Gregory's sense of frustration and depression. Just as he had anticipated, the armoured column which had reached the suburbs of Rotterdam the previous evening had long since turned north, after demolishing the makeshift road-barriers, but the main German thrust had now penetrated the eastern outskirts of the city and its fall appeared imminent.

  To Gregory's surprise and relief, just after eight in the evening, Inspector Fockink appeared. His uniform was smeared with blood and dirt, his face begrimed with smoke, and he looked a positive shadow of his former self. Without any ceremony he sat down in a semi-exhausted state on the bed, and Gregory mixed him a stiff brandy-and-soda from the little stock that had been brought in while such things were still obtainable.

  After gulping down half his drink the Inspector said: 'I've been trying to get here for hours but the whole city is in such a state that it's a miracle I got back at all. Half the streets are blocked by fires; the others are choked with debris from the bomb explosions or in the hands of the Germans, and wherever one turns there seem to be poor people who need help or protection from these murderers.'

  Gregory nodded sympathetically. 'Yes; you must have been through one hell of a time in these past five days. Still, I suppose the actual killing will soon be over, since General Winkelman threw in his hand this morning?'

  'It's that I wanted to see you about,' the Inspecto
r muttered. 'Apparently you've been following the course of the battle, as you have a map on the wall there. You'll have seen for yourself that our northern Armies were cut off and almost surrounded. I think Winkelman was right to save his men from further slaughter and to save the towns of the north from further devastation; but that doesn't mean that we're going to make peace with those blasted Nazis. News has just come through that our Prime Minister, Jonkheer de Geer, and his Cabinet have arrived safely in England and they have already issued a statement that Holland will fight on.'

  'Good for them!' exclaimed Gregory. 'Your country's taken such terrific punishment since last Friday that we couldn't have blamed you if you'd gone out of the war altogether.'

  The Dutchman shook his head almost angrily. 'Certainly not. To surrender while there is a single German left on the soil of the Netherlands is unthinkable. We have our empire overseas, our Navy, which although not that of a first-class Power is capable of inflicting considerable damage on the enemy, and our southern Army which will continue to support the Belgians. That is why the fight is still raging here, in Rotterdam, in spite of General Winkelman's "Cease fire" order. Two-thirds of the city is now in flames or ruins but it has become the western pivot of the new Allied line, so we mean to continue our resistance until it is rendered absolutely untenable.'

  'Well done, well done!' Gregory murmured. 'But how long d'you think you'll be able to hang on to the bits of it that are still in Dutch hands?'

  'Another twelve hours, perhaps, but that's about the best we can hope for. Our supplies of ammunition are running low and more and more German troops are pouring into the suburbs. The odds are that they'll have gained complete control of this vast heap of wreckage, which was only a few days ago our splendid city of Rotterdam, by the small hours of the morning.'

  Gregory made a grimace. 'Well, I don't suppose we shall ever know now what a Dutch court would have done to me for killing Chief Inspector Van der Woerden, but one thing is quite certain—if I'm still here when the Nazis walk in they'll shoot me.'

  'That's just what I thought, and I've made up my mind that I'm not justified in holding you any longer.'

  'Thank God for that!'

  'Well, after the way these Fifth Column people have stabbed Holland in the back it certainly wouldn't be the act of an Ally to hand you over as a prisoner to the Germans. God knows if you'll be able to get out of the city alive but I'm not standing on any formalities at a time like this, so if you like you're free to try it.'

  'Right!' smiled Gregory. 'Even a dog's chance is better than nothing,' and grabbing up his suitcase, he swiftly ran through its contents. He had no intention of burdening himself with it but just selected the most useful items and stuffed them in his pockets. When he had done he poured a drink for himself and another for the Inspector. They solemnly drank damnation to the Nazis, then went outside together. On the doorstep they shook hands and Gregory stepped into the street a free man once more.

  Erika had never been far from his thoughts during these trying days and he knew that she would have been worrying herself sick about him, so his natural impulse was to get back to her at the earliest possible moment. As the Allies were now holding a line from Antwerp to St. Trond he reckoned that apart from the danger of air-raids she was still quite safe in Brussels and would almost certainly remain there as long as there was any hope of his rejoining her; but the difficulty was how to get there.

  The city lay on the north bank of the Rhine, or Lek as it is called in western Holland, and the normal route to Brussels ran south-east, across the one bridge that spans the broad river, over the Noorder Eiland and through the great dock area of the Feijenoord peninsula. The bridge, island and docks were now in the hands of the Germans, who had also occupied the whole of the Karlingen area of the eastern side of the city; so the only free exits remaining were by way of the northern or western suburbs. But to head north or west would take him further from his goal and mean that in a few hours he would find himself pinned by the Germans up against the coast. On the other hand, if he could reach the river and get across by boat to a place either east or west of the docks the rest of his journey should not prove difficult as he would be in friendly country still held by the Dutch. In consequence he decided to turn south and see if he could get through to the waterfront.

  All hell was now loose in Rotterdam. The cannonade had increased to a steady drum-fire and the evening sky was one great pall of reddish smoke from the fires that were eating out the heart of the city.

  At Hamar he had seen how a small place can be practically blasted off the map by concentrated bombing, but this was a huge industrial area many square miles in extent and it did not take him long to realise that it had suffered in a degree that he would have thought unbelievable. The first air-raids on Helsinki were large-scale affairs but the damage they had done was simply nothing compared with the havoc which had been wrought by five days and nights of shelling, bombing and incendiarism in the great Dutch port.

  Not a pane of glass remained in any of the windows; great gaps appeared every hundred yards or so in the rows of buildings; streets and pavements were torn up as though from an earthquake; water mains had burst and flooded the lower levels; thousands of slates had been blown off the roofs and littered the gutters; lamp-standards had been uprooted and thrown across the roadways; tangles of fallen telephone wire snaked across great heaps of debris; the ways were partially blocked with overturned cars, wrecked omnibuses, twisted bicycles and dead horses; here and there barricades of vehicles, torn-up paving-stones and furniture dragged from houses had been erected, among which the killed were still lying; the air was stifling from the fires that were raging and in places ashes were falling like black snow; aeroplanes droned ceaselessly overhead, bombs crashed, guns thundered, fires roared, rifles cracked and machine-guns chattered. Sheltered in his cell even the babel of sound had given Gregory no conception that the city had been reduced to such an incredible scene of chaos and disruption.

  Stumbling over bricks and skirting piles of wreckage he headed south, but he had not got far before he was checked by flames and smoke issuing from a block of burning office buildings. Turning back he tried another street but found it blocked by a barricade upon which police and troops were fighting.

  Twenty-four hours earlier the Germans had gained a foothold on the northern bank of the river and they were now in possession of all that was left of the railway station and the Central Post Office. By street after street he tried to work his way down to the waterfront but in every case he was held up by fires or turned back by squads of armed police, while shells screamed over, bullets whined and brickbats hurtled through the smoke-laden air.

  After two hours spent crouching and dodging in this inferno he gave it up as impossible and turned west.

  Night had come once more and the red glow from the sky lit the scene of devastation. For what seemed an interminable time he picked his way through streets half-blocked by falls of rubble and twisted girders.

  Here and there a leg, an arm or a human head stuck out grotesquely marking the place where a human body lay crushed and buried. Rescue parties were at work among the ruins but they could not keep pace with the casualties and while there were so many maimed and bleeding humans to be helped and cared for there was no time to collect the dead. Owing to the heat some of the corpses were already beginning to stink and their odour mingled with the stench of cordite and the all-pervading smell of burning. 'This,'

  thought Gregory, as he stumbled on, 'is total war—Hitler's war. Pray God that we can keep it out of England.'

  Even towards the west his progress was constantly checked by other fires or police patrols and for a time he lost all sense of direction, to find himself eventually right up in the north by the Law Courts. Here he came upon a new series of barricades which were being attacked by another force of Germans who had worked their way round the city, and on both sides of the barriers snipers were firing from the roof-tops at anyone rash enough to show h
imself in the streets. Having tried to go west again by half a dozen different turnings, without success, he entered a house, the door of which was standing open. No one was about so he made his way through into the back garden, then he began the laborious process of climbing over wall after wall down the block until at last he emerged in a side-street that was on the German side of the line of barricades.

  He had not gone far when a squad of German infantry came running down the road. Without even challenging him two of them raised their tommy-guns and let fly. With that swiftness of thought which had saved his life many times before he flung up his arms at their first gesture and, letting his body relax, slumped backwards on to the pavement. The little bursts of bullets hissed over his head and spattered on the brickwork of a wall behind him. For a moment he lay there holding his breath, waiting for another burst to be poured slap into his body; but the Germans thought that they had already eliminated this solitary Dutchman who might be up to no good in the area where they were operating; without another glance at him they hurried on.