There was nothing suspicious about Gregory himself, since his uniform, although somewhat mud stained, was perfect and his German irreproachable; but Freddie Charlton in his queer get up was quite another matter. Flying officers do not wear army officer's greatcoats, and if the coat were once undone it would reveal the service kit of a British Flight Lieutenant. The Nazi was alone, so although he was armed there was a fair chance that the two of them would be able to overcome him before he could secure help. On the other hand, if they attacked him and had a fight in the station hall it was certain that the porter would hear and report it which would put an end to any hope of their being allowed on the Berlin train when it came in. Yet for what other reason could the Nazi be there at three o'clock in the morning, if riot to bring in suspects? If that was so, and they once allowed him to take them to the Party Headquarters, Gregory knew that it would mean a firing squad for him the following morning.
His hand moved towards his gun.
Chapter VII
Invitation to the Lion’s Den
GREGORY had raised his hand only a couple of inches when, evidently entirely unsuspicious of his intention, the S.S. officer produced his cigarette case with a flourish and flicked it open.
"A cigarette, Herr Oberst?" he said, offering the case with a friendly smile.
It was touch and go. In another second Gregory would have whipped out his automatic to hold the Nazi up. As it was, with, a polite "Danke, Herr Ober Lieutenant," he accepted the cigarette, and Charlton, being offered the case, took one too, refraining from speaking but smiling his thanks.
As they lit up the Nazi went on: "It's just as you like. You can remain in the waiting room if you prefer, but it's devilishly cold in there and you know how late the trains are running these days. I doubt if yours will be in before half past six. I've just finished the job that brought me out to night but I'm still on duty. At Party Headquarters I could fix you up with a drink and make you quite comfortable in the Mess."
Once more Gregory hesitated. Was this a trap because they were two to one and the Nazi wanted to get them inside quietly without having to risk his life tackling two desperate fugitive’s Or was his offer of hospitality genuine? If the Nazi really had no inkling that they were on the run a
refusal of his offer was the very thing best calculated to arouse his suspicions. No one but a fool, or a man who had something to hide, would willingly kick his heels in an icy station waiting room for three hours in preference to sitting in a warns Mess. It was a horrible dilemma but Gregory was a shrewd judge of character and the bluff, fair faced Ober Lieutenant was not the type that makes a good actor; so he was now inclined to think
that of the two risks it would be better to enter the lions' den.
But the devil of it was that once they reached the Nazi Mess
Charlton would have to remove his greatcoat and reveal his; R.A.F. service kit. That was the awful snag; but Gregory decided that there was only one thing for it: to risk his friend's freedom on a line that he had already thought out for use in an emergency, and to gamble once again upon the audacity which, had served him so well in the past.
"You are most kind," he said, "and nothing would suit me setter than to doze in one of your arm chairs for an hour or two. but I must first ask you if you are willing to take into your custody a British officer."
Freddie had picked up enough German from von Lutz luring the past two and a half weeks to be able to follow the gist if the conversation and when he heard Gregory's request he was utterly staggered. On the face of it Gregory was trying to sell him out and preserve his own liberty at the price of handing his friend over to the Nazis. Such an act of treachery seemed too terrible to contemplate but he felt sure that he had not misunderstood what Gregory had said. It was only with a great effort that he had managed to control his feelings and the muscles of his face while he waited with acute anxiety to see what would happen next.
"A British officer!" exclaimed the Nazi, suddenly switching his surprised glance to Charlton. "Is that him there?"
"Yes." Gregory drew calmly on his cigarette. "The cold is so bitter that we had to provide him with a greatcoat, but he's still wearing his service uniform underneath it. D'you think you can find him a cell?"
"Why, certainly, if you wish. But why isn't he in a prisoners of war camp?"
"Because his plane was only shot down early to night, over Essen."
"I see. But Essen 's a long way away nearly five hours from here by road. Why wasn't he interned locally?"
"He was shot down at about nine o'clock," Gregory shrugged, "and as he was flying a new type of plane the anti aircraft people handed him over at once to Intelligence. He's rather an unusual type for a flying officer and I think, if he's handled properly, we may get something out of him. Anyhow, we immediately telephoned Berlin about this new type of machine he was in and it aroused such interest at the Air Ministry that Marshal Goering said he would like to see him personally. That meant at once, of course, and it was not a job that could be passed on to a junior officer so I set off with him by car straight away."
Gregory felt that he had explained away rather neatly the fact of such a high officer as a full colonel being in charge of a single prisoner, and he was gratified to see the immediately favourable reaction which the name of Field Marshal Goering provoked in the Nazi, who said promptly:
"In that case, Herr Oberst, our Party Headquarters are entirely at your disposal. Let us go there at once." Then clicking his heels and bowing sharply from the waist he formally introduced himself: "Wentsich."
Gregory followed suit by barking: "Claus," and added: "My prisoner's name is Rogers Flight Lieutenant Rogers."
As they left the station Gregory made Freddie walk in front of him while he talked to the Nazi about the progress of the war. Ten minutes later they entered the main square of the town and after going up a few stone steps passed through a black out light lock into the big hallway of a fine old building which had been taken over as the local Nazi headquarters, on Hitler': coming to power.
Gregory looked warily about him, his hand never very far from the butt of his automatic. The Ober Lieutenant of Black Guards had not betrayed the least sign that he suspected them but Gregory still felt that they might be walking straight into a trap. A dozen Storm Troopers might come running at the Ober Lieutenant's first call but the cynical Englishman meant to see to it that, if that happened, the Ober Lieutenant himself never lived to profit by the results of his strategy.
Except for a couple of clerks working in a downstairs room, the door of which stood open, no one was about, and the Nazi led the way upstairs without giving the signal that Gregory so much dreaded. But, even now, he feared that they were only being led further into the snare so that there should be no possible chance of their shooting their way out and escaping from the building.
On the first floor the Nazi flung open one half of a tall, carved wood door which gave on to a handsome salon overlooking the square. The room was comfortably furnished. A big china stove was hissing with heat in one corner and on a side board stood a fine array of drinks. To Gregory's intense relief the room was unoccupied. It all seemed too good to be true. There must be a snag somewhere.
"Come along in," said the Nazi cheerfully. "What are you going to have?"
Gregory glanced at the bottles and away again. "Hadn't we better see my prisoner locked up first?"
"Need we bother?" the Ober Lieutenant shrugged. "He'll stand no more chance of getting away from you here than he would if he were downstairs in a cell and very much less than when he was alone with you walking to the station from the place where you left your car. Anyhow, it's so darned cold expect the poor chap could do with a drink, too."
At last Gregory's fears were set at rest. Things had panned out as he had desperately prayed that they might. He had suggested that Charlton should be locked up only in order that the S.S. man should more readily believe that he was an important prisoner.
"Certainly;" he a
greed at once. "So Long as my prisoner has no chance of getting away I'm perfectly satisfied, and I'm sure he'd like a drink. But he doesn't speak German. Do you speak any English?"
"No: a few words only but enough to say 'How D’you do', 'Hard luck', `You will drink, yes?' " Wentsich smiled at Charlton.
At an almost imperceptible nod from Gregory, Freddie said: "Thanks. It's very kind of you; I'd love one."
He had listened with anxious ears to every word that had been said and was now not only reassured about his own position but felt extremely guilty at his unworthy suspicion that Gregory had ever intended to leave him in the lurch. He could only admire the clever ruse by which his fellow fugitive had accounted for his Air Force uniform and the audacity of this brilliant stroke which had led to their both being received as guests in the comfortable Nazi Party Headquarters the last place in which their enemies would ever look for them.
When Wentsich had poured the drinks all three of them removed their greatcoats and sat down in deep arm chairs near the roaring stove. At first the talk turned on the mythical episode of Freddie's having been shot down over Essen the previous evening. Fortunately, as Wentsich spoke very little English, Freddie was not called on to give any details of his forced landing direct, and Gregory rendered what purported to be a translation of the airman's sensations by drawing freely on his own experiences when they had actually been shot down nearly three weeks before. Several British airmen having fallen victims to the Nazis in the interval, and the localities being so widely separated, the Ober Lieutenant did not suspect any connection between the two episodes.
Gregory then remarked that Wentsich must find life pretty boring stationed so far from the war fronts or any of the great cities; upon which the S.S. man laughed and said:
"In the ordinary way it's pretty quiet here but after the recent Putsch we had plenty to occupy us and, as a matter of fact, I had it over the 'phone half an hour before I met you that only to night half a dozen of our fellows were killed rounding up a traitor Baron about thirty miles from here."
"The devil " exclaimed Gregory, swiftly concealing his un easiness. "I hope they got him."
Wentsich shrugged. "We're not certain yet. The cottage in which he was hiding was burnt to the ground so if he was lying wounded there he was probably roasted to cinders, but he had two or three of his peasants with him and others came on the scene later to try to relieve the cottage when it was attacked. Our people shot several of them but the rest got away by a damned clever trick. In the darkness they managed to get hold of the truck in which our men had come out from Dornitz and they drove off in it. Whether the Baron who is a colonel, by the way got away with them we don't know. If he has, I expect we'll run him to earth before he's much older but I doubt if we'll be able to bring any of the peasants to book. They will probably have ditched the van somewhere and made their way back to their own cottages. As the schemozzle took place in darkness our people couldn't identify any of the men who attacked them, so I don't see how we're going to prove which of the `locals` was in the show and which wasn't; and it's quite certain that all their wives will swear that they were safely in bed at home."
These were really cheering tidings for the fugitives. No; only did it look as though the woodmen who had assisted them so loyally would come out of the affair all right but apparently the Nazis had no idea that the two airmen who had been shot down in the neighbourhood over a fortnight before had had any hand in the matter. Presumably they had both been written off as having managed to escape safely out of the district and since no description could be circulated of either of them, no body was bothering to try to trace them up any more.
"Even if life in Belzig is a bit boring at times, though,' Wentsich went on, "I'd a darned sight rather be stationed here than in Czechoslovakia."
"Yes. We've been having quite a spot of bother there recently, haven't we?" Gregory murmured. "Apparently, last week they had to shoot twelve students as an example."
"Twelve " the Nazi laughed. "That was only the start of t. We had to shoot 1,700 of these blasted Czechs to prevent our garrisons from being massacred. Prague was in a state of open revolution last week end and orders came from the Führer himself that, whatever the effect on neutral opinion, the revolt had to be put down. From what I've heard, it's been absolute hell there."
"Have they succeeded in quelling the rebellion now?"
"Oh, yes. The Gestapo doused the flames all right but there their still plenty of red hot embers kicking around. The Czechs loathe us Germans to the very guts and neither the troops nor police dare move about the city in squads of less than six after dark, for fear of being sand bagged or stabbed in the back. Of course, it's those filthy Jews who are at the root of the trouble; ' Prague simply swarms with them."
Gregory felt that from what he knew of the Czechs they were quite capable of making plenty of trouble for the Germans without any assistance from the .Jews, but he was sorry to hear that hey had risen in force when the time was not yet ripe and had suffered so severely in consequence. It would have been so much better had they waited until later in the war and made their effort to regain their freedom after Germany had been weakened by the blockade or had suffered some serious reverse. As it was, by the abortive rising they had done little material good either for themselves or for the Allies and it must almost certainly have robbed them of many of their best leaders, which was a tragic Business.
Wentsich went on to describe how thousands of Black Guards had been rushed on motor cycles to the scene of the trouble for the purpose of suppressing the riots and guarding the public buildings. President Hacha had been made a prisoner and was confined to a room in the old castle. The universities, which were such hotbeds of anti German feeling, had been closed for three years, and in addition to the shooting of 1,700 Czech and Jewish leaders thousands more had been deported or forced labour in Germany.
So accustomed has the mind become to accounts of mass persecution and even slaughter that it is apt no longer to grip and such statements as the Ober Lieutenant was making, but the full horror of the facts that lie behind newspaper headlines Gregory consciously tried to visualize just a fraction of the abysmal woe which must have stricken the Czech people during the last week.
For every one of those 1,700 deaths loves, friendships and life long ambitions must have been cut off. All those thousands of men dragged away into exile left behind them distraught families, many of which had now been robbed of all protection or support. Countless parents were mourning the loss of their sons; countless wives and sweethearts weeping for the men who had been torn from them by the brutal agents of the Gestapo, countless children were left fatherless; countless girls and young married women, who had no means of earning their own living, were left at the mercy of any man who would offer them enough money to buy the food they must have to keep the life in their bodies.
In his mind's eve he saw the big blond Storm Troopers breaking into the houses, beating the Jews with their rubber truncheons, frog marching the Czechs through the streets into captivity, pulling the prettier girls from their hiding places in attics and cellars to provide brutal fun in the nearest bedroom while their parents were held prisoner.
It seemed impossible to believe that the big, blond, cheerful Wentsich, who was entertaining them so hospitably, was capable of committing such atrocities; yet Gregory knew that, had the Ober Lieutenant happened to be drafted to Prague in this emergency, he would have acted in exactly the same way as his colleagues.
Perhaps he and his like were not altogether responsible for their actions, owing to the madness which had swept Germany and bound a great proportion of her younger, more virile men to obey any order which came down to them from the criminal lunatic whom they regarded as God and called the Führer.
But one thing was certain: even if such men were only partially responsible in the degree of leniency or brutality with which they executed their orders, those orders had been given; and the Monster of Berchtesgaden could not escape
the utter condemnation of the whole civilized world for all this incredible suffering and misery which his insane ambition was causing.
"Eh? What was that you were saying about the Finns?" Gregory suddenly roused himself. "So the trouble has flared up again?"
"Yes; only to day," the Ober Lieutenant nodded. "The Russians accused the Finns of having fired on their troops with artillery, killing an officer and three privates. Molotov has lodged a protest which almost amounts to an ultimatum. He insists that the Finns are threatening Leningrad."
"What nonsense” Gregory laughed. "The Finnish nation consists of only about four million people, whereas the Soviet's population is somewhere near one hundred and ninety millions. It's absolutely absurd to suggest that a little people like the Finns could possibly threaten the Soviet with its colossal armies and air fleets."
"Anyhow, the Russians are insisting that the Finns should withdraw their troops sixteen miles from their frontier."
"But that's impossible l It would mean their surrendering the Mannerheim Line, and how on earth could they be expected to do that? If they once gave up all the forts and gun emplacements south of Lake Ladoga into which they've put every penny they could raise for years they would leave their principal cities in the south of Finland absolutely unprotected. The Russians have such enormous superiority of numbers that they could just walk in and take them any time they chose."
"If you ask me, that's what they mean to do," Wentsich grinned.
They talked on about the war until well after four in the morning, when the door was flung open and a fat, bald headed officer stumped into the room. Wentsich immediately rose and clicked his heels. presenting Gregory as Colonel Claus and the prisoner as Flight Lieutenant Rogers.
The bald man was a major of Storm Troopers and rapped out his name, Putzleiger, in reply. He seemed to be in a particularly ill temper perhaps from having had to get up so early in the morning and, since the S.S. and the Reichswehr were always more or less at loggerheads, his temper was not improved by finding an Army Colonel in his Mess.
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