Web of Spies

by Colin Smith

  At this point he became hysterical. He attacked me, tried to tear the despatch to pieces, and had to be restrained by the guards, who manacled him. When I returned, a few hours later, he was calmer. He insisted that the secret message contained in his despatch must have been inserted by somebody with a grudge against him.

  However, he admitted that he knew of the captured British documents on the Beersheba water supplies. I asked him who had told him about the documents and whether he had paid for the information? After some prevarication he admitted that the information had come from Oberleutnant Weidinger himself, who showed them to him because his own English was not good enough to gauge their worth. I asked him if Oberleutnant Weidinger had ever told him anything else of military importance. He replied that the Oberleutnant had never informed him of anything that would harm the cause of the Central Powers. When I asked who had told him of Yilderim he said that he had heard the word mentioned when he overheard your conversation with Major von Papen at the Damascus Gate. He said that he had asked Weidinger what Yilderim was about, but this officer refused to discuss it with him.

  I then confronted him with the fact that he had gone to great pains to hide the fact that he was a Jew and that he had passed his messages to Sarah Aaronsohn and the Nili group by bribing the lunatic Swede Magnus to carry them to Smolenskin. They were then placed in the crevice in the Jews’ Wailing Wall, from where they were collected by the fugitive Joseph Lishansky.

  I told him that both Magnus and Smolenskin had confirmed this to me, lying about the Swede to see whether he might give any sort of indication that he knew of his disappearance. He replied that this was impossible, and would have become violent again had it not been for the prompt action of the guards who seized him. I warned him that if there were any more outbursts I would not hesitate to hand him over to the Turks for interrogation and this had the desired effect.

  Once he had quietened down Maeltzer declared that he had never denied that he was of Jewish extraction but nobody had ever asked him. I produced a Jewish skullcap with the name ‘Jacob Gonen’ in the lining, which I had found in the bottom of a trunk in his room at the Grand New Hotel. He said that the cap belonged to his father, a medical doctor, who had married an assimilated Viennese Jewess whose family had changed their name to Maeltzer. At the suggestion of an editor, he had, he said, used his mother’s name from the beginning of his career. Maeltzer said he was born in Vienna, but his parents moved to Switzerland when he was a child. When he was a young man he converted to Catholicism although he admitted that he rarely attended Mass. He was very vehement about the fact that he had no sympathy for people like the Aaronsohns because he was, in his own words, ‘virulently anti-Zionist’. He said that he thought that assimilation and not a Jewish state was the best solution for the European Jew, and only fools envisaged a Jewish homeland in such a godforsaken spot as Palestine.

  I put it to him that he had been a British agent for many years, probably since before the war, and that the secret writing on his despatch was an attempt to get a message out to a British intelligence officer in Switzerland because his usual communications to Cairo had been cut. I suggested that both the German High Command and the Turkish authorities might be tempted to take a more lenient view of his activities if he would co-operate with us. The first thing I had in mind was that he should give us the names of all his informants in Palestine. It might also be of interest to learn the name of his British Secret Service contact in Switzerland, although my guess is that he will simply turn out to be the military attaché or some other official at the embassy there.

  There might be an employee at the head office of his newspaper who had been induced to allow an intelligence officer from the British embassy to look over Maeltzer’s hand-written text after it had been printed in case it contained any emergency messages. I have in mind that we might get Daniel to pass on the kind of information we would like General Allenby to have at this point.

  I reminded Maeltzer that, as he was born in Vienna, according to law he was still an Austro-Hungarian citizen and therefore could be charged with treason. He did not reply to this but it is possible that a rapid court martial and death sentence might concentrate his mind and a deal could be made. But he is a stubborn man and I fear not without courage. He may choose to demonstrate that his loyalty does not always have a price on it.

  ***

  Colonel Kress von Kressenstein put the report down and dabbed at his brow. Etline was only ten miles from the coast, and after Jerusalem he was unused to the heat. He had moved his advanced headquarters down to the rail junction two days ago so that he would be better placed to meet a blow against the Gaza sector and still be in a good position to look after his left flank if the British should change their minds about Beersheba.

  He felt oddly disappointed by Krag’s report. All so simple really. A man who is licensed to collect information in the normal course of his work turns out to be a spy. What could be easier? Strangely, all his rage had gone. Instead there was a sense of relief. The Iscariotical bastard was not one of his Turkish officers after all. He was a civilian, a neutral civilian. Admittedly, a man he was acquainted with, had even held in a certain light affection. But by no means one of them.

  He wondered why Maeltzer had done it? Commitment? Money? And how long had he been a British agent? Well, the Turks would find all that out before they hanged him, and when at last that moment came Maeltzer would doubtless be glad to feel the rope around his neck. Unless Krag did manage to strike some deal with him – and somehow he doubted whether he would or whether his intelligence officer was all that interested.

  Weidinger was finished as well, of course. Krag had made sure of that in his skilful, understated, good policeman way. The boy would be lucky if he avoided a court martial and got away with that medical discharge he had been pulling every possible string to avoid ever since he came out of hospital. He could kiss his Iron Cross goodbye too. Kress wondered at the vanity that could have possessed him to show captured documents to a civilian simply because he was frightened somebody might steal some of his glory.

  Come on, old man, he chided himself. You’re forgetting what it’s like to be hungry, and Weidinger was hungrier than most. His foolishness did not detract from the fact that he had done well to push those Turkish lancers after that English colonel, who had committed the kind of gross foolishness which far outdid Weidinger’s blunder. And a colonel would surely be old enough to know better. Showing Maeltzer what he had found was hideously wrong, of course, and as far as his career went Weidinger would pay the ultimate price. In any case he had been on borrowed time, for it had been obvious to Kress for a few months now that Weidinger did not have the head on his shoulders for staff work.

  Perhaps, when the ballyhoo had died down, sometime after the next round, he might quietly get that Iron Cross for him – fold it in with the other recommendations that always followed a big show. By that time the boy would be home with his mother and his sisters and his wardrobe full of spare sleeves. For the first time he began to feel a certain repugnance for Maeltzer. Damn the man! Damn and blast him for taking advantage of a generous spirit! It was almost as if one of his daughters had been ravished.

  Kress went back to his work which was spread all over his desk in the form of situation reports, and over his adjoining map table in the form of coloured pins. Black pins for his side; red pins for the British, in deference to their old uniform. On the pins were little paper flags indicating whether they were cavalry, infantry or artillery.

  The Bavarian stood over the map and stared down it. A forest of red pins was confronted by a straggling line of black ones. And not all the black could be taken too seriously. Desertions, cholera and malaria had reduced his Fifty-fourth Division to about 1,500 rifles, about one-sixth of its official ration strength. Ten to one the British outnumbered him now. His sick little army of Anatolian peasants and Arab malcontents was tying down thirty British Imperial divisions. Berlin, of course, was delighted. The
Corset Staves were certainly earning their keep. And yet Allenby continued to give him time. What was keeping him?

  Perhaps, he mused, that was the answer. Why wait for Allenby to attack? Why not seize the initiative? Why not strike him a blow that would knock the wind out of him, cause him to delay his offensive until the spring – and who knows what would have occurred by the spring of 1918? The demands of the Western Front might have trimmed this overblown Egyptian Expeditionary Force of theirs back to what the British originally intended it to be: garrison troops protecting the Suez Canal route to India. Allenby would have lost his chance.

  He looked at the map again. There was a British salient at a place called Marshrafe. Salients were always risky things, a neck waiting to be chopped. Only commanders with overwhelming superiority could afford to risk them. What if he launched a surprise attack – no artillery softening – and swallowed it up?

  He moved a couple of infantry divisions so that they intersected the neck. Then he launched a third in a frontal assault. Why not?

  He examined the pin he had just picked up. It was the 54th Division. He shrugged and put it back where he had found it. That’s why he had to wait. Kress studied the little red pins again. All that, and Allenby wanted spies as well.

  ***

  When von Papen burst in to tell Krag that the Swede was dead he found the intelligence officer already reading a report on the matter he had received from the Turkish gendarmerie.

  ‘I suppose he must have offended some Jewish fanatic?’ he said.

  ‘Jews don’t kill,’ said Krag dourly. ‘At least Jerusalem Jews don’t. They’re too religious. It was more likely some Bedouin tomb-robber.’

  ‘It’s a pity,’ said von Papen. ‘Now you’ll never know how closely he was connected with Daniel. How mad he really was.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Krag, ‘but Maeltzer has already told us a lot.’

  ‘Has he confirmed the way his network operated? At the tribunal he was so indignant I almost believed him. In fact, if your evidence had not been so damning I would have believed him. Has he told you any more, or does he try to keep to the same story?’

  Krag made a hissing sound. ‘Surely you realise we are dealing with a professional here? He neither denies nor confirms anything. Even the Turks can’t get anything out of him, and they have not been too gentle. He’s the sort who will still have a few secrets left when he steps on the gallows.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ll hang him though, will they?’ said von Papen, who did not sound entirely convinced of the matter. ‘I mean, after all he is Swiss and a newspaperman. I don’t think Berlin would like it. Last time I was there I found people, influential people in government, far more conscious of our image. All this Allied propaganda – Hun barbarians bouncing Belgian babies off their bayonets and the rest – it’s half the reason the Americans are in the war, you know.’

  ‘It may not be entirely a question of what Berlin likes,’ said Krag. ‘We may also have to consider, however much it pains us, what the Turks would like – and they are not famous for the quality of their mercy. We might have to take Vienna’s feelings into account as well. That’s where he was born. Technically, at least, he’s still a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That would make him a traitor. And they put the same price on treason as we do.’

  ‘So he’ll hang?’

  ‘Probably. His only chance now is to agree to co-operate with us. Use his codes to send back false information and I don’t think he’ll agree to do that. It’s a dirty business isn’t it, Major?’

  For once von Papen looked impressed.

  13

  Jerusalem: 27 October 1917

  ***

  Suddenly there was enough light for Maeltzer to see his hands clearly. Then the words that proclaimed there was but one God and Allah was His name echoed down from a nearby minaret. Again he wondered how the dawn could ambush him like this. Surely he hadn’t been asleep? As far as he could make out the last time he had slept was in his room at the Grand New Hotel, content in the knowledge that a good day’s work had been done and a despatch was on its way to his newspaper. That had been six days ago.

  Since then Maeltzer had often found himself re-living his last conscious hour or so of freedom: the way he had put away his clothes, then washed himself in the warm water the night porter always sent up before cleaning his teeth in the drop he had saved at the bottom of the jug.

  Then the nightly twenty minutes with his diary, until the need to sleep drove him from his desk before he had finished everything he wanted to say. He had left the notebook open on the desk top, promising himself, as he always did, that he would finish the entry in the morning. A last piss into his pot, his night shirt twisted up into his right hand while he aimed well with his left; when he pulled back the bed covers he remembered how pleased he was to see that the maid had put on an extra blanket, for the nights were getting colder now. At last came that gentle glide into the untroubled sleep that lasted until the soldiers came crashing in.

  Since then fear had kept him awake. Dry-mouthed, clammy-palmed, heart-thumping fear that seemed to banish both hunger and fatigue and left him craving only for water and tobacco. His head buzzed. His mind never seemed to stop working, but he seemed incapable of concentrating on any one thing for more than a few seconds at a time.

  Maeltzer supposed he must have had the odd cat-nap. There were occasions at night when he was conscious that he had allowed his guard to slip and permitted a visit from the two-headed man or, worse still, the shadow figures who whispered that he would only make it worse for himself if he struggled. But he was always awake and shivering to hear the same reedy-voiced muezzin deliver fajr, the pre-dawn prayer that at this time of the year came at about four o’clock.

  Duha, the dawn prayer he had just heard, was two hours later. Gradually his cell became as light as it ever would, for the places for the condemned were in fact mostly below ground, with their high windows just above the level of a paved courtyard. Maeltzer was sitting on a palliasse, with his hands around his knees and a grey blanket drawn around his shoulders. The stone turned bitterly cold at night. He was wearing cord breeches and a now grubby white shirt that Krag had had delivered to him from his belongings.

  His shoes lay besides the palliasse. His feet were badly swollen from his latest interrogation at the hands of an Albanian major from the staff of Djemal Pasha in Damascus, who wanted to know the names of all his informants. On one wall was an iron ring, from which hung two lengths of chain with manacles on the end. He was attached to these when the Albanian beat the soles of his feet with his riding crop while demanding to know which Ottoman officers had given him information. Each blow was worse than the last. But the Albanian was not to be fooled by the journalist’s inability to even make up a name. He was unable to do this because all his contacts, apart from the long-departed officer with whom he had traded his Colt for the laissez-passer, were among the German-speaking. In the opposite corner was a galvanised bucket, which did not stink as much as it might have done because it was emptied most days and, in any case, by eating little he had managed to induce a merciful constipation.

  Soon after he judged it to be fully light outside there was the noisy rattle of keys and the drawing back of bolts. For Maeltzer the uncertainty of what would happen next always made these few seconds the worst of the day. No date had been set for his execution. Would they trick him like this on that last morning? Give him no warning, no time to compose himself? Simply turn up with the hangman and his shadows with their soothing words and binding ropes and that anti-Semitic Austrian bumpkin Liebermann who called himself a priest? The man had spent most of his visits questioning him closely about the sincerity of his conversion. There had even been trick questions about the New Testament.

  When Maeltzer asked the priest if he would take a message to Weidinger for him he became even more pompous than usual. ‘Haven’t you got that young man into enough trouble?’

  ‘Father, I want you
to tell him I’m innocent.’

  But he simply shook his fat, Tyrolean head, manifestly determined that the cunning of the race would not pierce the guard of Father Adolf Liebermann. ‘He heard you tell the tribunal that.’

  So now Maeltzer had to rely on Ibrahim, whom he thought a particularly loathsome specimen. His only worth was that he had been incarcerated long enough to have discovered ways of getting messages out.

  It was Ibrahim, not the hangman, who entered now.

  ‘Food,’ he said.

  As usual his painted eyelids were lowered as he came into Maeltzer’s cell. He was no more than fifteen, and one of a clan of partly settled Bedouin from around Hebron. A guard had told Maeltzer the boy was in jail over a death in some tribal vendetta; only his age had saved him from the gallows. Now he was the plaything of the NCOs in the Citadel while his family tried to raise the money to pay the blood debt. Otherwise, even if the Turks had chosen to release him, he probably wouldn’t have survived a week. Meanwhile, Maeltzer was alarmed to see how well the boy had adjusted to the role of captive catamite.

  The journalist nodded towards the camp table they had brought him, along with a stool, a few hours after the court had announced that he was sentenced to death. For some maddening reason Ibrahim always feigned not to notice it. It was presumably one of the luxuries thought more befitting for a doomed European. Maeltzer had found his warders to be quite decent on the whole, brutal only when it was expected of them.

  ‘Is it all there?’ he now asked.

  In fact, Maeltzer could not have cared less whether it was all there or not. He just wanted to give Ibrahim the chance to mumble any messages he might have for him before the guard standing at the door felt protocol demanded an end to this fraternisation. The best possible message he could hope for was that Weidinger had relented and would see him.