Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “Vaguely. Some sort of spy, wasn’t he?” I shrugged. “Anyhow, don’t tell me you knew all this off your own bat. You’ve been mugging it up in the library, haven’t you?”

  “One or two encyclopedias,” Sarah said. “I knew it was important, and I wanted to get it all straight. Rudolf Hess was Hitler’s deputy führer. In May 1941 he stole a plane, flew to Scotland, and asked to speak to the Duke of Hamilton. Apparently, they had met at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.”

  “I thought we were at war with Germany in 1941,” I said. I’ve always hated trying to remember dates.

  “We were. Hess claimed that he was acting on his own initiative, and that all he wanted was to negotiate a peace between Britain and Germany.”

  “That sounds rather noble. I don’t suppose anybody was grateful.” I was pretty sure that I’d have heard of him if he’d won the Nobel Peace Prize.

  “Ungrateful is understating the case,” said Sarah. “This is where it all gets madly interesting. The Duke of Hamilton did go and talk to him, but after that, the government shut Hess up in the Tower of London for the duration of the war. He was the last prisoner ever kept in the Tower of London, in fact.”

  Sarah’s frightfully good at crossword puzzles. You can see why. Four letters: last prisoner wishes to trade Tower for Cassel, that sort of thing. “Was the job offer to Edward VIII part of Mr. Hess’s peace plan?” I still couldn’t see why it mattered, but it was hours till teatime, so I humored her.

  “No. It was never mentioned. No one would have dared.” She could see I wasn’t following her. “Look. The offer was that Edward should have the throne of Russia upon the following conditions: that Britain should ally with Germany, and that Britain should help Germany invade and defeat Russia.”

  “Offer refused, of course.”

  “Yes, of course, but here’s the thing: the secret offer was made on May 11, 1941. Germany invaded Russia in late June. Britain did not warn the Russians of the coming invasion. According to these papers, Hess told our government about the invasion plans, but we did not pass along the information to the Russians, our allies. Well, not our allies yet, but not our enemy, either. They had declared themselves neutral. Yet we didn’t warn them.”

  “Why didn’t we warn them?” I tried to work it out for myself. “We didn’t like the Russians frightfully, did we? They had a revolution during the First World War, and killed off the Czar and all the Royals, who were relatives of our lot.”

  “Close relatives. The Czar and George V were first cousins, and could have passed for twins. Their mothers were Danish princesses. So I don’t suppose anyone in Britain actually liked Stalin and his government, but that isn’t why they withheld the information about the Nazi invasion.”

  “Are you sure? It wouldn’t be the first thing the family’s done for spite. Remember how they refused to make Uncle David’s wife a royal duchess, just because they loathed her?” I can’t remember battles or dates, but titles and family trees do make a fair bit of sense to me. It’s all people ever seem to talk about.

  “I know exactly why we didn’t warn the Russians about the invasion,” said Sarah dramatically. “It’s because we would have had to show the Russians the paper that Rudolf Hess was carrying-in order to prove how we knew. And we couldn’t show them the paper, because it also proved that Edward VIII was a traitor.”

  I was very shocked indeed. And indignant. Imagine being a collaborator with the Nazis and not having the tabloids crucify you! Sarah can’t even wear polka dots without getting narky stories run, and they go on about my shopping until I could scream, but here’s a Royal who actually did something frightful and-not a word! Unfair, I call it. Beastly.

  “Do you really think the government would have protected Uncle David even at the risk of offending a wartime ally?” If so, I thought, things have certainly changed for us Royals.

  Sarah frowned. I could tell that she was thinking about all the lectures she’d got from the palace watchdogs, and all the ticking off for the most trivial of reasons. “Well,” she said at last, “he was the King.”

  “Not then he wasn’t,” I pointed out. “By 1941, he’d already abdicated, and was being a royal nuisance, ringing up the new king, and trying to tell him how to run the show. And the Queen Mum, who was Queen Consort then, hated him. She still practically spits his name, because she thinks his abdication shortened her husband’s life-all the extra responsibility of being king. Edward hated her, too. He called her the Monster of Glamis, because she was so mean about his dear Wallis. I don’t think the courtiers or the government would have lifted a finger to get him an extra ration coupon, much less risked national security to save him from his own silly blunders.”

  “It’s true,” said Sarah. “All of Edward’s staff would have left royal service, because the new king would have wanted people whose loyalty he could trust. The new courtiers would have been in their jobs because they opposed Edward VIII. So, no. The government wouldn’t have kept it a secret.”

  We looked at each other, realizing the truth of it at the same time. “But the family would!” Even if they loathed him, they’d have kept the secret to keep the rest of them from looking guilty by association.

  I went back to my ballet exercises, and Sarah began to pace up and down, as we worked it out. “The government was never given these papers,” Sarah announced. “They were never told about them. Hess landed in Scotland, said his piece to the Duke of Hamilton-”

  “And Hamilton notified the family instead of the government!” Of course he would. He was a duke. My father would have done the same.

  “Douglas Hamilton was a Scottish duke,” said Sarah. “All the more reason. The Queen was the (laughter of a Scottish earl. Of course he’d warn their majesties about the family scandal.”

  “They wouldn’t tell the government, would they? No. It would make the whole family suspect.”

  “People thought there was far too much German blood in the family as it was,” said Sarah. “Remember that everyone had to change their surnames during the First World War. The Saxe-Coburgs became the house of Windsor; the Battenbergs became Mountbattens, and-I forget-who did the Cambridges used to be?”

  “Teck, I think. That was Queen Mary’s maiden name. Her father was a German prince, you know.”

  Sarah gave a low whistle. “They dared not let the secret out, did they? Britain might have dumped the monarchy then and there.”

  I nodded. “So they took the papers-but they turned Hess over to the government. Why didn’t he tell what he knew to Churchill?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he did, and he wasn’t believed. But I doubt it. I wonder what became of him.”

  I shrugged. “Too bad the encyclopedias here are so out of date. What are you going to do with the papers? Destroy them?”

  “No,” said Sarah. “I think I’ll keep them. They might come in handy someday.”

  I shouldn’t have let Sarah keep those papers, but I don’t see how I could have prevented her. I was never any good at talking her out of mischief. I even helped her poke people with umbrellas at Ascot once. I thought people would never shut up about that. I did wonder what had become of Rudolf Hess, though. It was tricky thinking of people to ask. They might want to know why I was interested. Your grandfather, Prince Philip, would know, of course, but he’s terribly touchy about the subject of Nazi Germany. His sisters were married to German soldiers, and they weren’t even invited to his wedding in 1947, so I thought I’d better not broach the subject with him.

  I waited until we got back to London and I was trotted out for a formal reception. I have to make small talk with diplomats and generals, and I thought that might be an intelligent thing to ask, instead of “Does your wife polish your medals for you?”

  I picked a doddery old fellow, who looked old enough to remember Napoleon, and worked the conversation round to the war, and then I said, “By the way, General, do you happen to know what happened to Rudolf Hess?”

  He got a funny look on
his face, and for a moment I thought I was doomed, but then he harrumphed, and said, “Officially, you mean?”

  That set me wondering. “After the war,” I said. “I know he was in the Tower of London until then.”

  “Oh, that. We turned him over to the Americans and the Russians, and they put him in Spandau prison in Berlin.”

  I smiled prettily. “And when did they let him out?”

  “Never did. He committed suicide in there a few years ago, at the age of ninety-something. Good riddance, Nazi bugger.” The general peered at me curiously. “Are you thinking of resitting your O-levels, ma’am?”

  I gave him the downcast, eyelash look that people take for shyness, and murmured, “Oh, no, General. It’s just that I thought he went on to become a ballet dancer in the Sixties.” That’s the sort of remark people expect me to make, and I got away with it and drifted on to the next guest. I had hoped to find out what he meant by officially, but I’m not allowed to dawdle with any one guest. Besides, it might have made him suspicious.

  When the party was over, I barricaded myself in the bathroom, and rang up Sarah. “Found out what happened to Rudolf!” I told her, reciting the general’s account of Hess’s life imprisonment.

  “Life?” said Sarah in disbelieving tones. “That seems a bit stiff for someone who sat out most of the war in London. And on a peace mission, too. And he lived to ninety, and they didn’t let him out?”

  “It’s an unforgiving world,” I said. “When did Wallis Simpson see the inside of Buckingham Palace? Not until her husband’s funeral.”

  “That was family spite,” said Sarah. “Government memories are shorter. I still say it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, the general did say something else. When I first asked him what had happened to Hess, he said, ‘Officially?’ Now what do you suppose he meant by that?”

  “It suggests a secret. Perhaps we should ask a few more generals.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to notice. I’ll ask my hairdresser. He always knows everything.”

  ALTHORP DECEMBER 1992

  Bear with me, Wills. I know this is a longish letter about ancient, ancient history, but Mummy does have a reason. And it took ever so much longer for me to find it all out than it will take you to read. Besides, I should think by now that you’ll be doing the government boxes, so you should be used to reading longish wrangles about government intrigue. But this is special. This is family.

  It’s Christmastime now, but I couldn’t bear to spend another holiday at Sandringham, pretending we’re all happy families, now that the separation is official, so I came home to spend the season with your Uncle Charles, Earl Spencer. I miss your Auntie Sarah more than ever, but I dare not talk about her to anyone. This has been the worst year of all of our lives, with Sarah and Andrew splitting up, and the problems between your father and me coming to light and ending in separation, and now the year ending with the fire at Windsor. If I’ve learnt anything these past twelve months, it’s that I must never let anyone see this paper. Nothing I do is safe. Not even a telephone call. Poor Sarah. For all her cleverness, she trusted the System far too much. I only hope that when You are the System, Wills, you can fix things.

  I was right about my hairdresser. He knows absolutely all the dirt, and he never tells tales to the press. I just adore him. I must admit, he was surprised when I asked him about Rudolf Hess.

  “Rudolf Nureyev, Your Royal Highness?” he murmured, tucking a curl into place.

  “No. It isn’t a ballet question,” I told him. “I mean the Nazi fellow who crashed in Scotland on a peace mission during the war. I heard that there was some sort of rumor about his case.”

  He thought for a moment, while he combed. “Seems like there was a bit of talk when he died, back in the Eighties, ma’am. While this side bit sets, let me nip over to the other booth and ask Nigel. Loves war movies, does Nigel.” A few minutes later he was back, combing again. “Nigel says you must be referring to the theory that it wasn’t Hess at all in the prison.”

  “Who was it?” I asked, turning my head at just the wrong time, and getting a hair-pull. “Ouch!”

  “Beg your pardon, Your Royal Highness. Nigel says that it’s been rumored for years that the fellow in prison didn’t look like Rudolf Hess, and didn’t seem to remember people and details from his life before the war. Apparently there are all sorts of bits of proof that the fellow in the German prison wasn’t the chap who landed in Scotland in 1941. Nigel says he could find you an article on the Hess mystery if you liked.”

  “No, thank you,” I said quickly. “It was only something I heard at a party. I’m not really interested.” I didn’t want any rumors to surface about my inquiry. I had a feeling that Mr. Hess was a very dangerous topic.

  I told Sarah so when I visited her at Sunninghill Park later that week. Andrew was off at sea in those days, and Eugenie was still an adorable little baby, so I looked in on her when I could spare the time. She was terribly lonely. That day I made her come out for a walk in the garden so that we wouldn’t be overheard. Sarah received my news of the substitute Rudolf Hess with satisfaction, but no surprise.

  “That explains why Hess didn’t tell the government that the ex-King was a traitor,” she said. “After the real Hess told the Duke of Hamilton about the offer, his papers were confiscated, and someone else was brought in to impersonate Hess. The government never saw the real Hess at all.”

  “Why not just kill him and present the authorities with a corpse?” I asked.

  “Because a Scottish farmer had captured Hess when he parachuted. He was taken alive, you see. If he subsequently died, it might have been suspicious. Instead, he was hustled to London and put in the Tower for four years. Or somebody was!”

  “Who would agree to go to prison as a Nazi?” I asked, but Sarah gave me one of those meaningful looks, and said very firmly, “Her Majesty’s Bobo. Queen Victoria’s Mr. Brown. Princess Anne’s bodyguard.”

  I knew what she meant. The Royal Family has always had a few adoring, utterly faithful servants who would do anything for their favorite Royal. They spend their entire lives in royal service, and become the closest of confidants. I supposed that in Queen Mary’s day there may have been even more servants who would have felt it their duty to sacrifice their very lives for the good of the Firm.

  “I don’t suppose the servant realized that it would be forever,” Sarah said thoughtfully. “Probably he assumed that it would be just until the war was over. He’d have been assured of a royal pardon, but of course the government wasn’t told about any of it, and they handed him over to the other Allies, and then there was no saving him. He had to play out his role to the death.”

  “A royal servant impersonating a German?” I said.

  “Use your loaf, Diana! Half the family was German. I’m sure they had servants from the old country. There was always a German governess in tow. There were probably other retainers from Germany as well.”

  “Wouldn’t someone miss a royal servant?”

  “Not if he had a relatively minor position. Footman or-”

  “Gardener!” I suddenly realized that we were talking about Scotland. “A servant at Balmoral. It’s so remote, no one would know what went on there. Is it far from Dungavel House?”

  Sarah considered it. “A hundred miles perhaps. They could have done it in a few hours, I think. One telephone call to Balmoral from the Duke of Hamilton, and it could all have been arranged by morning.”

  I began to pull leaves off a branch of rowan. The wind felt suddenly cold. “But what did they do with the real Rudolf Hess, Sarah? Surely you can’t think that he agreed to become a gardener at Balmoral?”

  “No. But I don’t think they’d kill him. It’s not the family style. We tend to shut people up when they’re inconvenient, at least at first. Richard III and the two little princes. Brenda the First imprisoning Mary Queen of Scots.”

  I giggled at “Brenda the First.” Sarah is awfully jolly, but I’
m always afraid she’ll slip and say something like that in public or to the press. Then heads would roll!

  “I wonder if there’s any way of finding out what they did with the real Rudolf Hess,” said Sarah.

  I shivered. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  I don’t know exactly where Sarah got the information about the family secret, but I do know when she got it. It was in January of 1991, just before she left for a trip to the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida. I know that she had been looking into old records books on Balmoral, and researching family history, and she did publish that nonfiction book about the royal ancestors, but I think that book was just an excuse to cover up her real inquiries. I wasn’t seeing much of her by then, because she had become rather too impulsive for safety, and besides I had more than enough troubles of my own, but just before she left for the United States, she sent me a coded package to my secret postal address in Knightsbridge. (There is no privacy at the palace, with all those prying eyes!)

  Even then, Sarah was unusually careful. There was no message from her, and no explanation. All the package contained was a souvenir guidebook of Glamis Castle. That was the Queen Mum’s girlhood home in Scotland, so at first I thought it was another of Sarah’s jokes, so I paged through it to see if she had put any funny little drawings in the illustrations, or perhaps written crude remarks in the margins, but she hadn’t. The book was perfectly ordinary, I couldn’t see what she meant by sending me such a thing, so I put it away in my desk at Kensington.

  Later, of course, I must have read it twenty times. After I realized that the woman who came back from Florida, the one who got drunk on the plane and threw sugar packets, was not Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The family knew about the substitution, of course, but the resemblance was nearly perfect, and by then Sarah’s public appearances had been curtailed, so that she didn’t go out much. No one ever gets very chummy with a Royal, anyhow. “How do you do, ma’am?” is about the sum total of anyone’s acquaintance with us. Except for the servants and courtiers, but I’ve warned you already that one cannot trust them. Believe it.