‘Nearly six. We’ve got dinner at seven with the court president, General Westropp, and his pal from the Judge Advocate General’s unit. I can call it off. Say you’re poorly. I’d love to miss it myself.’
‘I’ll be fine. It’s passing.’ I unpeeled myself and gazed at her worried face.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘This is taking too much out of you. I’m finding it hard enough.’
‘It fair stirs things up, doesn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Some tea?’
‘Something stronger.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
The days blurred. I was waiting for Dr Martin Hellinger – the dentist – to be released from hospital. His wounds had turned sour but they were expecting him to live – I hoped at least long enough to tell me about his depraved alchemy: turning teeth into ingots. He was increasingly my main hope of a breakthrough. All roads led to the dentist.
Over the next week, I interrogated twelve other prisoners. The interviews were variations on a palette of black and grey. My brain was marinated in a dismal stew of foul deeds and feeble excuses. My questioning of the defendants was getting more and more derailed. I was shouting accusations at them as much as I was seeking answers.
Each evening I drank too much, and each night I paid for it in lost sleep and violent dreams. Sam woke me twice more in successive nights. My shouts had terrified her in the adjoining room. By tacit agreement – or maybe it was simply Sam’s decision – we’d suspended normal relations for the duration. Somehow the situation and the context of our work weren’t conducive.
She too was feeling the strain. Each morning her bright eyes looked duller, her fine skin paler. I looked worse. I was permanently tired, usually had a headache and always a sense of growing despair. Not about our mission; despite my mental fragmentation we seemed to be getting somewhere. Maybe because of it. I was scaring the hell out of the prisoners as well as Sam and Will Collins.
There was respite in the form of the interview I had with Odette Sansom. In a sense it put the whole wretched business in better perspective. Back in August, while I was running around Scotland reporting on the antics of the vigilante group, the Glasgow Marshals, Odette was being awarded the George Cross for bravery by our king. Now here she was, supping tea with me, after testifying against the SS guards at the trial.
She was a bonny woman, my age, with a shock of curly brown hair. Her softness and sweetly accented English belied her steel core. She was French-born but had married a lucky Englishman and moved to England in 1931. They had three daughters. She gave up sweet domesticity for the perilous life of a British agent.
‘What did you do with your girls, Odette?’
‘I made them very safe. I put them in a convent.’
‘And then marched off to war?’
‘Not war, exactly. I joined the Resistance in Cannes. As a courier. To do my bit for France. That is all.’
‘All? It was extraordinary bravery. They caught you.’
Her brows furrowed. ‘Gestapo. They tortured me and sent me to Fresnes prison. In Paris.’
‘Why didn’t they just shoot you?’
She laughed. ‘It was my cover. My SOE boss in Cannes was Peter Churchill. I told the Gestapo he was my husband and also the nephew of Winston.’
‘They believed you?’
‘They didn’t know what to believe. So they sent me to Ravensbrück. And there, too, they were a little wary of losing a . . .’
‘Bargaining counter?’
‘Exactly.’ She grinned.
‘I heard a bizarre story about you and Fritz Suhren, our absent camp commandant.’
‘Suhren arrived in early ’45 and I kept the Churchill story going. Just before the Russians liberated the camp, he drove off with me to surrender to the Americans. He thought they would not hang him if he had looked after a relative of Mr Churchill.’
‘When we catch him again, he’ll find he was mistaken.’
Her face clouded. ‘I hope so, Douglas.’
‘Did he mention rat lines to you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not by that term. But he talked about getting away, getting to South America.’
‘Did he say how?’
‘Only that he’d been too late to abandon his post and go to Spain. It’s why he threw himself on the Americans’ mercy. But there’s one thing. While we were driving he stopped in a wood and took out a box from the back of the jeep. He buried it.’
‘Good God! What was it?’
‘He laughed when I asked. He just said insurance.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘Not a clue. I was pretty dizzy with it all. I couldn’t have told you whether we were driving north or south.’
‘Did you meet Hellinger, the camp dentist?’
Her mouth pursed with distaste. ‘He was a creep. I never met him but I know what he did.’
‘What did he do?’
‘It was common knowledge. He hung around like a ghoul waiting to rip out gold fillings.’
‘You never saw him in action?’
‘No, but I heard about him from Vera. She got hold of Schwarzhuber in Minden prison and got him to confess to what happened with our SOE pals.’ The tears welled up and she dabbed at her eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Odette. Please stop.’
‘No, no. It needs telling. They treated Denise, Lilian and Violette abominably. They took them out to the crematorium barely alive. Poor Denise and Lilian had to be carried on a stretcher. Suhren was in charge. He had them shot in the back of the head.’
‘Hellinger?’
‘He removed their gold fillings.’
We sat transfixed with the unspeakable images. I gave her a cigarette and we talked quietly until the light faded and we’d exhausted our different experiences of dealing with the Nazis. She left me feeling like a fraud for my angst and outbursts. She’d survived hell. I’d merely been a spectator.
As the days passed I completed the top and middle layers of the hierarchy on Scrymgeour’s blackboard. We now had a complete picture with names and ranks, and we knew who was missing. We even had names and some photos of the SS commandants of the sub-camps. We just didn’t know where they’d gone. The names were sent to Berlin in the hope of some cross-checking. Some of the missing might have been picked up in other zones. Though nobody knew what the hell the Russians were up to.
We had several confirmations of the existence of Rattenlinien across Europe. And from the snippets I was picking up, we had a growing certainty of the existence of an escape route through north Germany and on to Scotland. If only I could get my hands on bloody Hellinger.
‘It’s the weekend tomorrow, Douglas.’
‘So it is. I intend sleeping through it.’
We were sitting in the Bear’s saloon, gin and tonics in hand, and catching up on the newspapers flown out from Britain. The news was of twelve-hour gales and floods, followed by snowstorms. We’d already had the hurricanes and rain. We’d be buried in snow in the morning. It felt like the end of time.
‘Well, you can’t. I won’t let you. It’s your birthday tomorrow.’
I stared at her. Then I checked the paper. The latest was yesterday’s, 23 January. Rabbie Burns’s birthday – and mine – was tomorrow. I would be thirty-five. Halfway through my three-score and ten. The tipping point.
‘That’s all I needed. Another intimation of mortality.’
‘Rubbish. We’re going to celebrate. The Black Watch garrison is holding a Burns Supper. We’re invited.’
I groaned. ‘Not the Black Watch. Have you seen how those guys fight?’
‘Well, no. But I understand they’re quite good at it.’
‘That’s how they throw a party.’
It was a mad, glorious riot of an evening. My one regret was being in the wrong uniform. Sam and I were made honoured guests in a full-blown, bagpipe-blasting, kilt-swirling ceilidh. Haggis had been flown in along with crates of 56-proof Glen Grant straight from the distillery. Once the colon
el found out I was a Seaforth Highlander in disguise and that we’d fought together in the 51st, I had no choice but to lead the highland dancing.
I soon found how out of shape I was, but it didn’t matter. The Black Watch officers had kidnapped every secretary, every QARANC nurse and WRAC officer for miles around. Even so, Sam stood out. I don’t know where she’d hid it but a long frock and sequined jacket had appeared from her suitcase. By the light of the roaring fires, fuelled by Scotch and Burns’s verses, we danced like linties till the small hours.
We sprawled in the back of our staff car on the drive back to our quarters with smiles on our faces. For the first time in weeks I’d broken out of my downward spiral. It was a reminder of how good life could be if you let it. How good Sam and I were together. Given half a chance.
‘Thanks, Sam. You were right.’
‘Of course, I was. Silly man.’ She squeezed my hand in the dark and whispered. ‘By the way, I’ve been saving your present till we got back to the hotel.’ She smiled meaningfully.
TWENTY-EIGHT
We had Sunday to recover and took it easy on ourselves. For a day at least I felt I was regaining some balance. On Monday morning I found that the birthday bash had given me a much-needed burst of energy. The way I’d been feeling lately it was unlikely to last so I decided to seize the day. Collins was waiting for me downstairs on as usual. Seven thirty on the dot. I stormed past him.
‘Come on, Will.’
‘Sir?’
‘We’re going to the hospital. If Hellinger won’t come to us, we’ll bloody well go to him.’
We drew up outside the building. It had lost part of its left wing but the rest stood firm. A great red cross was painted on its front and in the quadrangle in front. Two soldiers stood on lazy guard duty on the steps. They sprang to attention as Collins and I strode up and through the doors. We grabbed a Queen Alexandra’s nurse and had her steer us up two flights and along a corridor. Two more soldiers sprawled in chairs outside a room, smoking away, tunics loosened and ankles crossed. All they lacked were hammocks.
Collins called out, ‘’Ten-shun!’
The squaddies leaped to their feet. One dropped his rifle and scrambled for it before standing blushing with his mate on either side of the door. I walked up to them and gave them my senior officer eyeball-to-eyeball inspection. I found them wanting.
‘Do you normally throw your rifle around, Corporal?’
‘No, sir!’
‘Stand easy. And that doesn’t mean sit on your arse. Clear?’
‘Sir!’
I pushed open the door and walked in. A man was sitting in his pyjamas and dressing gown reading a book. Cigarette smoke curled leisurely up and away from a brimming ashtray. His specs obscured his eyes until he looked up, surprised at the sight of two British Army officers marching in. An army nurse was flattening the top sheet on the bed. She straightened up.
‘Good morning, sir. Do you have an appointment?’
‘Yes, nurse. And it’s long overdue. You can leave us. Thank you.’
She looked as though she was going to object, glanced at the man in the chair, and walked quickly out. We turned to the man. I spoke in German.
‘Obersturmführer Dr Martin Hellinger?’
His mouth was open and his eyes were round with fear. Did he think we’d brought a firing squad? He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He managed a nod.
‘Good. I’ve come to talk about teeth.’
Collins and I pulled up chairs on either side of him. Other than the panic we’d induced he didn’t look that poorly. Pale-faced and scrawny, but far from death’s door. He was swallowing hard and breathing fast.
‘Show me your arms.’
He stuck both arms out in front of him. I yanked up the dressing gown and pyjama sleeves. Red weals ran across both wrists. But they were healed.
‘So, Hellinger, feeling better, are we?’
He gulped and nodded.
‘Speak, man!’
‘Ja, Herr Colonel.’
‘Hellinger, we have testimony from a number of witnesses that you were responsible for removing the gold fillings from the poor wretches in Ravensbrück camp. Before that, you were similarly employed at Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg. Correct?’
‘I was just a dentist. I—’
‘You committed war crimes. You are a stain on humanity. You will hang.’
His face looked as though it would melt in fear. He shook his head as if to deny his bleak future.
‘My job is to make a final assessment and recommendation about what happens to war criminals like you. Do you understand?’
He swallowed and nodded.
‘I have the power of life or death over you and your kind. Usually I am implacable but I have been known to be lenient. I have been persuaded to recommend long prison sentences instead of a slow hanging. Do you understand?’
‘Ja, Herr Colonel.’
‘It all depends on how much cooperation I get. Clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He was nodding for his life now.
‘Let’s start. See how this goes, shall we? See if you can save your neck. What did you do with the gold you took from people’s mouths?’
His eyes fluttered. ‘I melted it down.’
‘Where?’
‘We had a little furnace, next to the crematorium.’
‘Handy, eh? Was this your responsibility?’
‘Hauptsturmführer Suhren ordered me to do it. He said they had one at Auschwitz.’
‘Just fillings or other sources?’
‘All the gold jewellery ended up in the pot. Silver in another.’
‘What did you do with the melted gold and silver?’
‘We made ingots and sent them to Berlin.’
‘Did you stamp them?’
‘With the eagle and the swastika.’
‘All of them?’ I dug in my pocket and pulled out a small yellow slab. It glittered in the morning light. Hellinger’s eyes were drawn to it like a magnet. ‘Why are there no markings on this one?’
‘Can I have some water?’ he croaked.
Collins got up and brought him a glass. He choked as it went down. I held the ingot in my palm, waiting.
‘Suhren kept some aside. He didn’t want them marked.’
‘What for?’
‘Escape. He thought the Red Army was coming.’
‘He was right. How many of these did you make?’
‘Many. I don’t know.’
‘Dozens? Hundreds?’
‘Hundreds.’
‘Did Suhren talk to you about escape? Did he say how?’
Hellinger looked from me to Collins and back again.
‘Is this what you want to know? How he got away?’ His look of fear was draining away.
I leaned closer. ‘It could save your life.’
A flicker of emotion crossed his lean face. Hope? Cunning?
‘Can you promise me prison if I tell you?’
‘If the information is good enough.’
‘How can I trust you? I don’t know you. I don’t know what powers you have.’
‘You don’t. But what are your choices?’
I could see his brain whirring, assessing.
‘He talked about escape routes.’
‘Rat lines?’
He shrugged. ‘If you like. He said the ones to Rome and Switzerland had been blocked. He would have to go north.’
My mouth went dry. I tried to be casual.
‘I’ve heard that. On the coast. Where exactly?’
He looked out the window, and then back, flicking his eyes between us, assessing us, assessing his chances. ‘Cuxhaven.’
‘At the mouth of the Elbe?’
‘Yes.’
I nodded. ‘Address? Contact?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who. But Suhren told me if I wanted to follow him I should go to a certain bar near the old harbour.’
‘That makes sense. A sea route out. Name of the bar?’
‘The Angel’s Wing.’
We emerged from the hospital and I turned to Collins. He was grinning like a fool. I punched him gently on his shoulder.
‘We did it! We bloody did it, Will!’
‘You did, sir. You bloody did!’
‘Right. Talk to me, Will.’
‘Sir?’
I switched to German. ‘I’ve not heard you speak German. From now on, we only speak German. Let’s hear it.’
‘How’s this? I’m afraid my accent isn’t as good as yours.’
‘Christ, man, you’ve even got a posh German accent!’
‘Sorry.’ His young face coloured. ‘I spent a year in Germany before the war with my parents. Father was at the embassy in Berlin. So I picked up the accent among the kids there.’
‘Well, it will have to do.’
‘Have to do for what, sir?’
‘For our trip to Cuxhaven, of course.’
TWENTY-NINE
I found Sam at her desk in the offices behind the court. It was barely nine. She was preparing for the afternoon session.
‘You’re mad, Douglas! What are you going to do, just waltz in to this bar and ask about their arrangements for escaped Nazis?’
‘Sort of. I’ve got Collins out looking for old clothes. German clothes. And a boat.’
‘A boat! You’re going to storm ashore from a boat? Guns blazing? You tried that before, remember. On Arran.’
‘And I seem to recall that it resulted in the rescue of a certain damsel in distress.’
She had the grace to blush. ‘You’re a big stupid hero, Brodie. And I’d like you to stop now.’
‘No heroics this time. Will Collins and I are going on the run. We’re a pair of SS officers looking for a way out of occupied Germany.’
Sam put her hand to her mouth. ‘You’ll never get away with it.’
‘Why not? We both speak good German. Though I might have to add a duelling scar to Collins’s face to go with his Hochdeutsch accent.’
Iain Scrymgeour had wandered over and was tuning into our conversation.
‘Samantha’s right, Brodie. It’s bloody mad. But it might work. Worth a try. Need any help?’
‘Gold. I need more of these.’ I took out the sliver of gold and let it blaze. ‘Or silver.’
Douglas Brodie 03 - Pilgrim Soul Page 15