by James Lepore
“Hello, professor,” someone said. “Are you with us?”
“Yes, Fleming,” Tolkien replied, “I’m with you.”
“Good, you were drifting, exhausted I’m sure.”
“No, exhilarated, actually.”
“Exhilarated, well . . .”
“Did you want to speak to me?”
“Yes, before it’s too late.”
“You want me to lend you my years.”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry, it’s something I tell students who come to me.”
“The letter,” Fleming said, haltingly, “my father . . . Can you tell me now how and when you met him? Do you mind?”
Tolkien smiled. “You realize where we are, Fleming?” he said. “A distraction would be quite welcome.”
Fleming looked discomfited, and Tolkien regretted his sarcasm. Mild though it was, it had plainly pierced his young countryman’s emotional armor. Did this brash young fellow actually have a sensitive heart? And then Tolkien realized that brash and young, though often going nicely together in the same sentence, did not mean immune to pain. “Of course, my dear fellow,” he said. The professor paused to gaze with new eyes on Fleming and then began.
“We landed in the same muddy shell crater one night during an assault. Your father’s horse was badly injured, he was sprawled across your father’s legs.”
“When was this?”
“The Somme.”
“Ah, he died the following May.”
“Yes, I read about it and posted the letter.”
“What did he talk about?”
“He berated me for sparseness of speech.”
“Berated you . . . ?”
“Yes, but it was . . .” Here Tolkien paused again, remembering that night in 1916. “It was said from one soldier to another. A sort of . . . I was going to say camaraderie, but that’s not what it was. It was more like older to younger brother, or father to son. Utterly respectful, mischievous actually, old Etonians and all that. I must say, if you will pardon my sentimentality, even loving. Of course in the most obscure of English ways. I offered to shoot the horse, but he did it himself.”
“He loved horses, could never understand why I didn’t,” said Fleming.
“He was the bravest soldier I met in the war,” Tolkien said, “and I met many brave ones, and many broken by cowardice as well.”
Then Tolkien said what he thought he would never say to anyone. “I thought he was going to die. He ordered me to get back to the assault, not to come looking for him, an order that to this day I regret obeying.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid, you see. No man’s land . . . Had I gone back, his life might have been different. He might not have died in that farmhouse in Picardy.”
“Nonsense.”
“Before I left him I gave him my Benedict medal. I should have gone back, but . . . but . . .”
“What did you say? What did you give him?”
“The St. Benedict medal my wife gave me when I shipped out.”
Fleming reached into his leather jacket, pulled out his wallet and carefully extracted from its secret pocket a St. Benedict’s medal. “Is this it?” he said to Tolkien, handing the medal to him.
Tolkien took the medal, turned it over and ran his fingers over its smooth surfaces. “Where did you get this?” he said.
“It was in a leather pouch in my father’s tunic. They sent it with the packet of his personal things. There was a note in the pouch as well.”
“What did it say?”
“For Johnnie.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
Through his blouse front Fleming fingered the replacement Vedo medal he had worn around his neck the past twenty-two years.
“Is it yours?” Fleming asked again.
“Of course,” Tolkien replied. “Your father said his family was rather free-form when it came to religion, but the medal, well, it was the best I could do, knowing I wasn’t going back to save him.”
“You shall have it back.”
“Nonsense,” Tolkien replied, surprising himself by raising his voice and speaking sharply. “I have a replacement, given me by Edith. This medal is yours.” He handed the Vedo back to Fleming, who took it without hesitation. “It was always meant to be for Johnnie,” Tolkien said. “Indeed, perhaps for use this very night.”
“Use? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It’s not just the German army we’ll be facing tonight, surely you understand that.”
“I do, but . . .”
“But? Once the business in the canyon starts, you’ll know instantly what I mean.”
“But you can’t . . .”
“I can’t what?”
Before Tolkien could answer, the sound of Rex Dowling’s harsh whisper pierced the night: “Here they come. Both parties.” Torn back to the present, Tolkien and Fleming turned quickly and saw Hans and Jonas Kaufman coming toward them out of the forest at a low run. A quick look behind revealed Korumak, Gylfi, and Dagna, each carrying large tin cans in each hand, approaching at a quick walk through the orchard.
* * *
The fellowship, in its full complement of eleven, now knelt or sat on the ground in a semi-circle at the foot of the orchard wall. The six four-liter tins of lamp oil procured by the dwarfs were lined up behind them.
“You first,” Fleming said to Korumak.
“All the German soldiers are dead,” said Korumak, “except one, the radio operator. We subdued him.”
“The priests?”
“I told them to leave, but they refused. They have no means of transport, some are old, some sick. None have left the abbey in twenty years.”
“Did you tell them the Reich will likely be very angry at them?”
“They don’t care. They say they will pray.”
“The rat poison?”
“The cook used it all.”
“Took no chances. Good man.”
“Of course,” said Dowling, “if autopsies are done, all of the monks will hang, as well as Father Schneider.”
“Fleming shook his head. “Bloody hell.”
“Hans?” Fleming said.
“Seven men at the Roman wall.”
”The patrol,” said Fleming. “They must have left one man back to man the radio.”
“How did they know about the Roman wall, that the cave entrance was there?” said Dowling.
“They must have gotten it out of the abbot,” said Fleming.
“Somehow I doubt that,” Dowling replied. “I . . .” he said, but went no further, shaking his head.
“Shall we return and kill them?” said Hans.
“We have no choice,” Fleming replied. “That’s where the cave entrance is.”
“The scouting was a good idea, I apologize,” said Vaclav. When they reached the orchard the Czech captain had been all for going straight to the Roman wall, but Fleming and Dowling, counseling caution, had rejected that idea and sent Hans and Jonas out to scout.
“Jonas and I can do it,” Hans said. “Wait here. Come when I whistle.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Professor Tolkien watched as Fleming considered what to do, gazing from him to Dowling, to the new man, Vaclav, who was grinning from ear to ear. He has no fear, Tolkien thought, he is literally fearless. What better trait to have in a soldier?
“I’ll go with you,” Vaclav said. “I will not take no for an answer. These may be the only Nazis we’ll get a chance to kill tonight.”
“The five of us will go,” said Fleming, indicating himself, Dowling, Vaclav and the Kaufman brothers. “Come when I whistle twice,” he said to Professor Shroeder and the others. “Ho
w far is it, Hans?”
“A hundred meters, no more.”
“Can we surprise them?” Fleming asked. “Tell me the terrain.”
“There is a small rise on the north side. The wall butts against a hill. They have cleared an area near the wall and spread out behind it at four foot intervals.”
“Like they’re guarding a fort,” said Dowling.
“Yes,” Hans replied. “If we can get to the ridge on the north without them detecting us, we can dispose of them with one hand grenade.”
“Two,” said Vaclav. “I will be throwing one as well.”
Overhead they heard the sound of a plane approaching, a low flying plane from the sound of it. There had been complete silence, and then suddenly the harsh buzz of the plane’s propeller. They scrambled to the wall and pressed themselves, faces down on the cold earth, against its large smooth stones. The plane flew over at no more than three hundred feet. A searchlight beam from its belly swept the wall and the nearby tree line. The plane flew off but only to bank and return, this time flying even lower, perhaps fifty feet above the treetops that surrounded the little orchard on three sides. The searchlight swept directly over them, then the plane climbed and flew away into the night.
“I don’t get it,” Rex Dowling said. “First they go north, then they come back here.”
“They still have the radio at the abbey,” Fleming replied. “I guess some survived the rat poison and called for instructions.”
“Why send a recon plane? Why not just send troops?”
“I agree,” said Fleming. “It doesn’t matter though. They saw us, which means they’ll be back in force.”
“We’re wasting time,” said Vaclav. “We could be in the tunnel by now.”
The five-man commando team crouched and waited for Fleming’s signal. He raised his right hand and then lowered it sharply and they were off at a crouching run into the forest.
49.
Berlin
October 10, 1938, 12:15 a.m.
“Ja,” said Reinhard Heydrich. “Yes, yes, danke. I will call you back in ten minutes.”
Across from Heydrich on a plush couch sat Heinrich Himmler. He had just taken a sip of hock and was dabbing at his Hitleresque mustache with a linen napkin. They were at the end of Heydrich’s large, rectangular office reserved for comfortable meetings with Nazis in the highest echelon. The rich, soft textured, one-hundred-thousand-dollar Persian rug that covered this area was sixty feet in length by forty feet in width. They were there to discuss an operation they were planning that would launch, once and for all, the mass incarceration and eventual elimination of all Jews in Germany. It was a celebration of sorts. They had worked hard to develop a group of “paramilitaries,” basically civilian thugs with clubs, who would spearhead the operation in the major cities. The Munich Agreement had not even mentioned Jews or minorities, let alone provided any protection for them, but still, how could the German authorities expect to control a spontaneous uprising of the people of the kind they had so fastidiously planned? All they needed was an excuse, preferably the assassination of a popular German politician or soldier, the sort of thing that worked beautifully in the past to stir up popular hatred. If one didn’t happen soon, they had agreed they would have the SS do it and then blame it on a radical, German-hating Jew.
“Who was that?” Himmler asked, hoping it wasn’t something that would spoil their celebration.
“My adjutant. They have spotted our professors and at least nine others on the ground in Metten.”
“I see. This is not good.”
“No, the nearest troops are two hundred kilometers away.”
“You will have to call Goering.”
“Goering?”
“Yes, he can get paratroopers there in thirty minutes. Tell him it is a direct order from me.”
“You are not his superior.”
“If he refuses, tell him I will go directly to the Fuhrer. Everyone knows the Fuhrer will name me his successor. It’s all but signed and sealed.”
“How many troops?”
“Several hundred, blanket the area.”
“Dead, or alive?”
“We want Shroeder alive, the others must all be killed.”
“We don’t know who they are.”
“Reinhard, are you concerned? Is your mole among them?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.”
“Goering will want to share the glory.”
“If his men catch Shroeder and we wrench his secret from him, our fat flyboy will deserve a share of the credit.”
50.
The Bavarian Forest
October 9, 1938, 12:30 a.m.
Fleming and Professor Shroeder climbed over what was left of the Roman wall and walked slowly along the steep, rocky hillside that ran behind it for about a hundred yards. The others were back at the scene of the attack on the troops at the wall, a one-sided affair in which five hand grenades thrown simultaneously had made a bloody mess of the seven German soldiers whose fate it was to guard this long forgotten, two-thousand-year-old wall with their lives. Which is what they did, though they never knew why it was so important. The English reporter-cum-spy and the German professor were glad to leave that scene behind—body parts were everywhere, rock dust settling on them like shrouds.
“This is it,” said Shroeder, stopping suddenly.
“Where?” said Fleming.
“That ledge. The entrance is behind it.”
Fleming looked up at a small rock outcrop about thirty feet up the bramble-covered hill.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Look at me,” Shroeder said.
Fleming looked and saw the hair on the old man’s head, white as snow and long, standing straight up, the professor’s eyes an unnatural dark, dark green. “I’ll get the others,” he said.
“No, wait,” said the professor.
Fleming, who had started to turn away, turned back.
“We must hurry. What is it?”
“I need your word that you will take care of Billie.”
“You have it.”
“That you will take her out of Germany.”
“She may not agree to go.”
“She has to, she is a Jew.”
Fleming paused before answering, yes, he had heard right. “A Jew?” he said. “Nonsense, her mother was a Prussian aristocrat. She told me the story.”
“That was a fairy tale I told her. Her mother was a Jewess in Munich, where I was teaching, a servant. I fell in love with her. We were to be married.”
“Professor Shroeder . . .”
“She doesn’t know, you see. Jews have never been loved in Germany. I thought it best . . . And then the Nazis came along.”
“You have my word.”
“Thank you. Fleming?”
“Yes.”
“It was not my life I was in fear of losing. Would that I had lost it years ago. Bauer knows Billie is a Jew. He found the birth papers in Munich. He told me if I did not find the artifacts and perform the ritual, Billie would be sent to a concentration camp, where she would surely die. Tell me again, do I have your word?”
“Yes, professor, you do.”
* * *
When Fleming returned with the others, Shroeder was crouching on the ledge, looking into the mouth of the tunnel. His hair had returned to its normal disheveled state and was now whipping in the wind that had suddenly started to gust. He turned to face them and, Moses-like, pointed down to them with his cane. If the journey from Berlin to Carinhall to Metten had taken its toll, he did not show it, at least not in his voice. “Come,” he said, loudly and clearly, “John Ronald and Trygg and Gylfi and Dagna, no others. It is a long tunnel.”
51.
The Devil’
s Canyon, October 9, 1938, 1:45 a.m.
John Ronald Tolkien stood next to Franz Horst Shroeder on a small, rocky shelf gazing down, and up, at the Devil’s Canyon. The English professor’s fevered imaginings of this place, based less on Franz Shroeder’s brief description than on the exotic venues of his beloved Norse mythology, were nothing compared to the real thing. The width and breadth of a rugby pitch, its walls on all sides were sheer vertical stone covered almost to the top with a leafless, thorny vine. The same plant, if it could be called a plant, covered most of the canyon floor, except now it took the form of rambling brush and bramble, in places the height of a full-grown man. Only a raggedly circular area of a diameter of perhaps twenty-five feet, just below where he stood, remained bare earth. At the far end he could make out through the near complete darkness the shape of a gigantic tree, its top branches extending up and over the canyon’s rim. The thorn-brambles surrounded the tree and were growing, in tortured, twisting patterns, up and around its massive trunk.
“The Devil’s oak,” said Shroeder.
“I don’t see the alter.”
“The torch.”
Tolkien switched on the flashlight he had used to help negotiate the tunnel, where its white light was a godsend. Here its beam shone weakly to a point a few feet ahead but no more. “Worthless,” he said.
“Give it to me,” said Shroeder. “When the dwarfs are done, I will use it to find the alter.”
Down on the canyon floor they could dimly make out Trygg, Gylfi, and Dagna hacking out three separate paths to the Devil’s oak through the bramble with their maces, dragging their tins of lamp oil behind them as they went. Above they could hear the wind beginning to blow hard, much harder and steadier now than the gusts that buffeted them on the hillside before they entered the tunnel. The sky was covered with thick, heavy clouds.