A major who was seated near-by eyed them curiously, as they were speaking in English, but no-one else took the least notice of them and while Freddie endeavoured to distract his racing thoughts by trying to puzzle out the captions beneath the pictures in a German illustrated-paper Gregory drifted off to sleep.
They did not lunch with Goering. At intervals during the morning many occupants of the room were quietly summoned from the door and had disappeared not to return again, but new arrivals had taken their places and it remained just about as full as when Gregory and Charlton had first entered it. Then, shortly after midday, a portly servant arrived and announced in unctuous tones:
“Damen und Herren Schaft, it is His Excellency’s pleasure that you should receive his hospitality while you are waiting to be received; but I am asked to remind you that discretion regarding business matters should be observed while you are at table. Please to follow me.”
Freddie roused Gregory and with the rest of the waiting company they followed the portly man down a corridor into a large dining-room. Gregory’s eye lit with appreciation as it fell upon a long sideboard on which was spread a fine, cold collation and, nudging his friend, he whispered:
“There! What did I tell you? Even if we are not lunching with the Field-Marshal we are taking lunch off him.”
“I wish I could be as certain about dinner,” Freddie muttered.
“Oh, we’ll probably dine with him personally. You must remember that I haven’t had the chance to talk to him yet.”
“You lunatic.” Freddie suddenly laughed. “I can hardly believe that all this is real, you know. It’d be just like acting in a pantomime except for the kind of nightmare possibilities that lie behind it all.”
Gregory grinned. “That’s better. Just go on thinking of it that way. In any case, you’ve got nothing to fear so long as you’re inside that uniform. They can only intern you.”
“That’s all very well, but I’m worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m an old soldier. My motto always has been ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’, and those bottles over there look to me like excellent hock. Goering always does his friends well.”
Freddie squeezed Gregory’s arm. “Well, whatever happens, I’d like to tell you that I’m proud to have known you.”
They had been standing a little apart but now they sat down at the long table and proceeded to enjoy the luncheon provided for them. There was very little general conversation, as the butler’s reminder that the reasons for this strange company’s having been brought together should not be discussed served to make everyone present extremely cautious. Remarks were confined to the barest civilities and as soon as the meal was over they were all shepherded back into the other room.
In spite of his anxiety Freddie was drowsy now; which, quite apart from the fact that he had been up all night, was not to be wondered at, seeing that during luncheon Gregory had deliberately filled him up with Liebfraumilch Kirkenstuck. By half past two quite a number of people who had arrived much later than themselves had been summoned to the presence, so it seemed as though Goering had his day mapped out and might not receive them for some time to come. In consequence, Freddie decided to follow Gregory’s example and they both stretched themselves out in arm-chairs, side by side, to get what rest they could.
Coffee and cakes were brought at four o’clock but both Gregory and Charlton refused them and dozed on until after five. People had been coming and going nearly all the afternoon but now the room was almost empty and by six they found themselves alone, which gave Freddie his first chance to speak freely and to ask a question that had been bothering him ever since the morning.
“Why should you be so certain that Goering will see you because you sent up your Iron Cross? He’ll probably imagine, as the little clerk said, that you’re just an old soldier with a grouse.”
“Oh, no, he won’t,” Gregory smiled. “That Cross is a super visiting-card. You see, every decoration has engraved on its back the name of the man upon whom it is conferred. My Iron Cross has von Pleisen’s name on it, and von Pleisen was the head of the anti-Nazi conspiracy that darned nearly put paid to little old ’Itler and all his works, just on three weeks ago. The second Goering sees that name he’ll know that whoever has brought the Cross is well worth talking to.”
“I get you. Darned good idea, that. “You see, aircraft has been my passion ever since I was old enough to collect toy aeroplanes and to read the simplest books about flying. In the last war the German pilots put up a magnificent show and, after von Richthofen, Goering was the best man they had, so he’s always been one of my heroes. I never have been able to understand how such a brave sportsman got himself mixed up with these dirty, double-crossing Nazis.”
“It was through his intense patriotism,” Gregory replied quickly. “He absolutely refused to believe that Germany was defeated in the field and still declares that the Army was let down by the home front. After the Armistice he was ordered to surrender the planes of his famous air-circus to the Americans; instead, he gave a farewell party to all his officers at which they burnt their planes and solemnly pledged themselves to devote the rest of their lives to lifting Germany from humiliation to greatness again.”
“Yes, I know all that. But why should such people have allied themselves with blackguards like Hitler and Goebbels and Himmler?”
“Goering has never really been in sympathy with Goebbels and Himmler—in fact, they’re poison to him—but Hitler is another matter. Say what you like, Hitler has extraordinary personal magnetism. In 1922, after having failed to make any headway on his own, Goering heard Hitler speak at Munich. He realised at once that here was a fanatic with all a fanatic’s power to influence the masses—a man who was preaching the same doctrine as himself and one whose wild flights of oratory people would listen to, while they only shrugged their shoulders at his reasoned arguments. From that day they joined forces. Hitler did the talking while Goering secured for him his first really influential audiences and spent his own wife’s fortune on entertaining for the Party, thereby giving Hitler a background that he had never had before. He is a brilliant organiser and it was he who planned, step by step, Hitler’s rise to power. The very fact that the two men are utterly unlike in character makes them a perfect combination and Hitler owes every bit as much to Goering as Goering does to Hitler.”
“Is that really so?” Freddie raised an eyebrow. “I thought Goering was just an honest, bluff fellow who had been a bit misled, and, having been the head of Hitlers’ personal bodyguard in the early days, had risen with him.”
“Not a bit of it,” Gregory laughed. “Hitler is the visionary—the dreamer of great dreams; but he lacks courage both physically and mentally. He listens first to one man then to another and is always swayed in his opinions by the last-comer. It’s absolute torture to him to make decisions. Goering, on the other hand, is a realist—a man of action, with an extraordinary ability to assess values and get right to the root of a matter almost instantly. He is a man of enormous energy and a tireless worker.”
“He was born out of his time. He ought to have been a Spanish conquistador or a Saracen general like Suliman the Magnificent. They recognised only those who were for their religion or their country, and were capable of the most incredible barbarities against anyone who opposed them. He has the same mentality. Just like them, too, he has a passion for personal adornment and love of surrounding himself with riches and splendour. After all, the gilt and marble of this place is only the modern version of a Borgia’s palace and, as you know, beneath such places there were always dungeons, torture-chambers and an execution room.”
Freddie Charlton shivered slightly as he glanced round the great apartment with its rich carpet and ornate furnishings. It seemed impossible to believe that perhaps under their very feet there lay cells where men suffered and died; and that before the night was out he and Gregory might be thrown into them. Yet he knew that Gregory was right.
Unnotic
ed, the door had opened quietly behind them and a voice suddenly said: “His Excellency, the Field-Marshal, will receive the Herr Oberst now.”
Chapter IX
“He who Sups with the Devil needs a Long Spoon”
They both stood up and Freddie followed Gregory to the door, but the official raised his hand.
“It is only the Colonel whom His Excellency has consented to receive.”
Gregory glanced at Freddie and said in English: “He doesn’t know anything about you yet, as I didn’t wish to confuse the issue by mentioning that I had brought anyone with me. You’d better wait here, I think.”
It was the first time since the plane had been shot down nearly three weeks before that the two had been called upon to face the possibility of a permanent separation, and in that instant Freddie really realised how much he had come to admire Gregory and to depend on him. But now that the moment had come when he was to be left alone to face whatever fate had in store for him he did not allow any trace of his apprehension to show. With a calmness that, in turn, won Gregory’s admiration he just smiled and said:
“Well, good luck. I’ll be seeing you.”
Gregory smiled back. “Don’t worry about me if I’m a long time—in fact, you can take it that the longer I am the better things will be going.”
The official led Gregory across the hall to a lift which rose with the speed of an American installation; then down a corridor and into a room where two of the grey-clad bodyguard were sitting. They immediately stood up and while one said politely, “Permit me to relieve you of your pistol, Herr Oberst” the other, murmuring, “You will excuse this formality,” slipped his hands under Gregory’s armpits, from behind, and down over his pockets to his hips to make sure that he was not carrying any other weapon. He handed over his automatic and submitted smilingly to the swift patting of the expert frisker, then the first man beckoned him to a great pair of double-doors and, tiptoeing forward, gently opened one of them.
Next moment Gregory found himself in Goering’s vast, dimly-lit study. The door closed softly behind him and he walked forward across a great empty space of thick pile carpet, vaguely glimpsing the big pictures that adorned the walls—portraits of Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Mussolini, Kaiser Wilhelm II, von Richthofen, the ex-Crown Prince, Napoleon, Balbo and Hitler—but his mind was on the powerful figure at the very end of the room, seated behind a fine table-desk. On it there were no papers; only writing impedimenta and a scribbling-block, flanked by two great silver candelebra holding a forest of tall, lighted, wax candles.
From them came the only light in the great apartment but it threw up the big head, forceful face and enormous shoulders of the Marshal. Behind him there was a panel of flaming red and gold, in the centre of which was suspended a huge executioner’s sword—his symbol, since it was he who had reintroduced beheading into Germany as a quick, clean death for those who differed from him in their political opinions.
Gregory had ample time to observe these details as he covered the distance between the door and the desk, but immediately he came sharply to attention in front of it Goering wasted no time.
Displaying the Iron Cross in his hand he said:
“Where did you get this?”
“It was given to me, Excellency, by General Count von Pleisen himself.”
“Why?”
“For services rendered, Excellency.”
“When?”
“At eight o’clock on the night of November the 8th.”
Goering raised an eyebrow. “What service did you render?”
“I brought him the list of the Inner Gestapo, whose duty it is to spy upon the high officers of the Army, and a letter from the Allied statesmen guaranteeing Germany a new deal if the Army leaders would overthrow Hitler and sponsor a freely-elected Government.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Gregory Sallust. I am an ex-officer of the last war, now employed as a British Secret Service agent.”
“You must know that by making such disclosures to me you have signed your own death warrant.”
“Yes, Excellency?”
“Then why do you come here?”
“Because I’m in love.”
For a second Goering frowned but Gregory’s unwavering gaze held his and he saw that his apparently crazy visitor was, after all, not mad. His face relaxed a trifle as he said:
“Well, why should you virtually throw away your life by coming to me about it?”
“Because, Excellency, I believe you to be the only man in Germany who may be able to give me the information that I am so anxious to have about the woman I care for more than anything in the world.”
Goering sat back and thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches. “Give you information? All I’m going to give you, my rash friend, is a bullet.”
“Naturally, Excellency. I am prepared for that. All I ask is that you will be generous enough to give me the information first and the bullet afterwards.”
Suddenly Goering laughed. “Lieber Gott! You must love this woman pretty desperately.”
“I do, Excellency. I have had a most interesting life and, for the times in which we live, a reasonably long one. She is now the only thing that matters to me and if I can find out what has happened to her I am quite prepared to die.”
“Mr. Sallust, you are a brave man.”
“People have been kind enough to say so, Excellency.”
“Very well. Who is this woman?”
“Erika von Epp.”
“Who?” Goering jumped to his feet with a swiftness amazing in a man of his bulk. “Who did you say?”
It was the decisive moment and Gregory brought all his biggest guns to bear in the attack. “I spoke of that old friend of yours for whom you imported a hundred cases of French champagne free of duty, only just before the war—Cliquet 1928, several bottles of which I enjoyed with her at Das Kleine Schloss, in Munich—of the lovely girl for whose sake you protected the Jewish armaments millionaire, Hugo Falkenstein, until he was fool enough to quarrel with Hitler—of the clever woman who was invaluable to you in your secret negotiations with her friends among the Army chiefs—of that amazing Erika who is as brave, as generous and as unscrupulous as yourself; who is more beautiful than either the Dietrich or the Garbo and yet has said that if fate permitted she would divorce the Count von Osterberg in order to become Mrs. Gregory Sallust.”
“So!” As Goering brought the word out he lowered himself into his chair again. For a moment he sat silent, then his whole manner changed completely. He spoke reminiscently, as one old friend to another. “Life was a hard school for Erika, as it was for all of us Hochwohlgeboren Germans after the last war. When Falkenstein died she swore that she would never love again and I would have bet a million on it. Her marriage to von Osterberg was made only to please her father before he died and the Count agreed to give her absolute freedom. If it is true that she is prepared to divorce him and marry you—an Englishman—you must be a very remarkable man.”
“As I shall shortly be facing a firing-squad there can be no point in my either concealing or distorting the facts, Excellency.”
Goering smiled. “No. From the look of you I should think that you could be the Prince of Liars on occasion, but men like you do not lie on matters like this. So Erika really wanted to marry you? I must say that that fact alone makes me wish to know more about you. Sit down and help yourself to a cigarette.”
“Thank you,” said Gregory with a relief that he did not show. He felt that now he had succeeded in intriguing the Marshal he had at least cleared the first fence in his audacious plan. The cigarette that he took from the lapis-lazuli box was fat, round and long. The first puff of it told a connoisseur like Gregory that it was made of the very finest Macedonian tobacco. He said appreciatively:
“I haven’t had anything so good as this to smoke since I entered Germany when I had to chuck away all I had left of my own Sullivans.”
“They still come through
,” Goering shrugged, “and as the war progresses it will become still easier to obtain them.”
“That opinion is not shared in high quarters in London,” Gregory remarked amiably. As though he had touched a spring, the Marshal suddenly became alive—dynamic:
“Of course not! They think they’ve got us with their blockade, don’t they? That all they have to do is to sit tight on the Maginot Line and hold the seas and that Germany will gradually be starved into surrender as she was in 1918. But they’re wrong. In 1918 Germany and her allies formed one block entirely surrounded by enemy countries with the exception of outlets through Holland, Denmark and Sweden. today only one of Germany’s frontiers is definitely closed by an enemy army—the French frontier from Luxembourg to Basle. From any other quarters we can draw supplies to supplement the vast stocks that we laid in before the war and our internal arrangements for making the most of our own resources are infinitely better, so we can carry on for years; and it is I who tell you this—I, Hermann Goering who planned it all.”
Gregory bowed, feeling it a good sign that the Marshal seemed so willing to discuss the war, and went on: “Your amazing organising abilities are well known, Marshal, to anyone who is even slightly acquainted with the new Germany; but what is going to happen when a real war starts?”
“You mean a Blitzkrieg or the launching of a campaign on the lines of the last war entailing the movement of hundreds of thousands of men?”
“Yes. I can well believe that you have very wisely anticipated your normal requirements in vital commodities for a number of years and that with the supplies you can acquire through neutrals you will be able to ensure your population sufficient food to keep them from open revolt almost indefinitely; but once a total war breaks out you will have to use millions of gallons of petrol a day to keep your huge air force in the air and will be called on to replace the enormous wastage of munitions, tanks, equipment. Are you quite so sure that the structure won’t then crack under the strain?”
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