The Leader And The Damned

by Colin Forbes

  'When I was brought back by train to the Berghof for the second time I was given the same room where I had earlier watched the man with the mirrors. They had cleared the place out but missed a drawer at the base of a wardrobe. Inside I found a whole collection of military works - Clausewitz, von Moltke and others...'

  'The very books I know the Fuhrer himself studied,' Hartmann confirmed. 'This new Hitler must have studied for his role in every aspect, maybe over a period of years. Obviously that included the same military manuals the real Hitler read. But he will lack his predecessor's flair - the war is being handed to Stalin on a plate...'

  'You think I'm right, then?'

  'Yes - and for another reason. Hitler no longer makes use of his old powers of oratory in public - the talent that lifted him to the heights. A strange omission - until you realize that is one activity a pseudo Fuhrer would never dare indulge in because he couldn't pull it off. That is the clincher. And here

  comes Paco...'

  'You wish to see how determined we are to fight the Germans?' asked Paco. 'Come with me, both of

  you...'

  She led the way from the rock pile across the slope of the hilltop towards where the Partisans had completed constructing their rampart of boulders at the brink of the drop.

  'This is not my idea,' she told them. 'It is Heljec who insisted on this... demonstration.' 'Demonstration?' queried Lindsay.

  'Of the Partisans' will to fight. I argued with him but still he insists. So, you will see...'

  Heljec stood with a group of men behind the boulders, his waist decorated with grenades slung from a belt, a normal Partisan technique Lindsay found most alarming. They were all there. The amiable, round-faced Milic who smiled at Lindsay. Bleak Bora who looked away at the trio's approach. Dr Macek whose expression was anything but happy (Lindsay wondered why). Heljec's deputy, Vlatko Jovanovic who, behind Heljec's back, made a gesture of resignation to Paco. What on earth was going on?

  Heljec himself seemed delighted. He beckoned them forward and placed them between two massive boulders where they could stare down the vertical drop into the abyss. He even laid an arm across the Englishman's shoulder and said something to Paco.

  'He wants you to watch the road,' Paco translated. 'They are coming now,' she added.

  In the depths a file of tiny figures were marching steadily along the winding thread of a road. As the column came closer, began to pass underneath them, Heljec handed a pair of field-glasses to Lindsay and spoke again. Hartmann was provided with his own pair of binoculars.

  'He wants you to study the column,' Paco said tersely.

  Mystified, Lindsay focused his glasses. In the twin lenses he was astounded to see the entire column was composed of women, women between approximately the ages of twenty and forty, women armed with every conceivable weapon.

  At their waists swung the inevitable hand grenades, festooned round them like some hideous decorations. Pistols were shoved inside their belts. Sheathed knives adorned their sides. Many carried rifles, a few machine-pistols.

  They wore the Partisan cap with a red blotch which, Lindsay assumed, was the five-pointed Communist star. There was an eery atmosphere about the endless column which plodded past remorselessly. Not a single woman glanced up to the sheer rock wall rising above them, although Lindsay felt sure they knew a group of their compatriots was watching.

  'Who are they?' he asked, lowering his glasses.

  'The Amazon Brigade,' replied Paco tonelessly.

  Heljec began talking excitedly and Paco, her eyes blazing, turned to confront him, arguing back, her voice and manner as cold as ice. Heljec's expression became ugly as Paco shook her head. He raised his pistol and pointed it at Lindsay. For Hartmann's benefit Paco spoke in German, turning her back on

  the Partisan leader.

  'Heljec wishes me to tell you both this. The Amazon Brigade are the survivors of a small town which was attacked by a German company. All their men were killed in the battle. They formed themselves into this so-called Amazon Brigade, trained with the Partisans - and then went to hunt down the company which had attacked their town. You both understand that I am telling you this story only at Heljec's urging?'

  'Get it over with,' Lindsay suggested.

  'They thought they had found the Germans they sought trapped in a defile. The German were surrounded, had not eaten for days and were exhausted. They surrendered...'

  'Go on,' Lindsay said quietly.

  'After the Germans surrendered, those women down there castrated every man with their knives. The next bit Heljec does not know I am telling you. They had found the wrong Germans. The men were innocent. Now Heljec parades those women to show you how all his people - women as well as men - fight the enemy. Sometimes I wish I had never joined these people.'

  Hartmann's expression was grim. Heljec lifted his pistol and placed the muzzle against his forehead. He said something to Paco.

  'He wants you to look at those women through your binoculars again,' Paco told him. 'He says if you don't he will pull the trigger..

  'Tell the murdering swine to go ahead..

  Hartmann threw the field-glasses at the Partisan leader's feet and braced himself. Lindsay saw Heljec take the first pressure. Paco burst out with a stream of Serbo-Croat. The Englishman had never seen her look so contemptuous. Heljec pulled the trigger.

  There was a click.

  There had been no bullet up the spout. Hartmann remained very still. His face was now bloodless. Heljec removed the weapon and spoke again.

  'He says you are a very brave man,' Paco translated.

  'Tell him I can't repay the compliment,' Hartmann retorted.

  The German shoved both hands inside his jacket pockets and walked away. Paco and Lindsay followed him up the hill to the rocks where they had sat earlier. Hartmann sat down and looked at Lindsay.

  'You know why I concealed my hands? They are trembling uncontrollably. I nearly messed myself back there...'

  'We have to get away from these bastards as soon as we can,' Lindsay said savagely.

  The Heljec incident seemed to have forged a bond between the German and the Englishman. And Paco

  made no attempt to object to what had just been said. Escape...'

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  They brought Sergeant Len Reader into the Partisan camp after darkness had fallen like a black cloak. It might be more accurate to say Sergeant Reader brought in the three Partisans - led by Milic - who had found him.

  Dressed in British Army serge uniform, Reader marched in front of the group as though in charge. Twenty-seven years old, about five feet eight inches tall, he had a beaky nose, alert eyes, was clean-shaven and exuded an air of confidence.

  'Who's in charge of this bloody mob?' he enquired. 'You're English..!'

  Lindsay stood up, holding the bowl of food he had been consuming with no great enthusiasm, stupefied by the appearance of the new arrival. Reader displayed no such surprise. He addressed his compatriot as though meeting him was the most natural thing in the world.

  'London, born and bred. Sergeant Len Reader, Royal Corps of Signals. Plumber by trade - so naturally they say we're going to make a wireless operator of you, Reader. Oh, I'm insubordinate, too.

  Would you by any chance be Wing Commander Lindsay?'

  'I would.'

  'Sir!' Reader threw up the most impressive salute he had encountered. 'Any of these buggers crowding us understand English?'

  'Only a blonde girl called Paco - she's elsewhere just now...'

  'So I can talk and only you'll get my drift?'

  Reader was holding in one hand a sten gun and Lindsay was beginning to understand how he had managed to retain possession of the weapon. From his belt hung ammunition pouches which appeared to be bulging to capacity. A backpack completed his equipment.

  'Yes, Sergeant. And this would be a good moment to talk.

  'I was supposed to join up with the Brigadier - Fitzroy Maclean, that is - who jumped with his lot fro
m the first aircraft. I was with the team in the second plane. I jumped all right then my bleedin' parachute has to drift away from the rest of 'em. So I find myself all on my own-some. Funny thing, the container with my transmitter lands plonk! Nearly bashed my brains out.'

  'This Brigadier Maclean - can you tell me what he's doing in this part of the world?'

  'Suppose I can tell you - seeing as part of the job was to airlift you out and fly you back to where we

  came from...' Reader lowered his voice. 'Tunisia.

  Maclean's main job is to contact the Partisan boss over here, better not mention his name, seeing as we're surrounded with all these Peeping Toms. So I find myself wandering round for days dodging Jerries and some of the locals who seem to be hobnobbing with the enemy. A right balls-up, if you ask me...'

  Cetniks,' murmured Lindsay, 'the locals collaborating with the wrong people...'

  'We was warned about them. Had a lecture - situation appraisal as the toffee-nosed Intelligence lot call it. Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and God knows what they've got over here. A regular goulash of a place this is. This lot who found me didn't get the old transmitter,' Reader added with some relish.

  'What happened to it? That could be vital...'

  'Buried it, didn't I? Just before they arrived. I could take you to it now, it's not half-a-mile away. Better keep mum about that, hadn't we?'

  'Yes, Sergeant, I should keep very mum indeed. I may want you to send a signal back when we can. How did you manage to hang on to that sten gun? I'd have expected Milic to confiscate it on the spot.'

  'If that's Fatty you're talking about, he did try it on. I couldn't tell a ruddy word he was blathering but I made sure he understood me.'

  'And how did you manage that, Sergeant?'

  'Pointed the muzzle at his belly, cocked the gun and told him if he didn't keep his bleedin' hands off it he'd get half a magazine for breakfast.'

  'And not understanding one word of English, I imagine Milk got the message?'

  'Too right, he did!' Sergeant Reader looked round at the staring faces. 'Scruffy bunch, aren't they? No discipline. I'd get them licked into shape in no time...'

  'I expect you would, Sergeant.' Lindsay lowered his voice. 'I want you to remember something in case anything happens to me. In my right-hand jacket pocket there is a small, black, leather-bound notebook I pinched from the Berghof. I've used it as a diary - noted down everything I've observed since I landed in Germany. Including the identity of a man I think is a Soviet spy at Hitler's operational headquarters. That book must reach a Colonel Browne of SIS in Ryder Street, London...'

  'Nothing's going to happen to you while I'm around,' Reader said chirpily, 'so hand it to him yourself.'

  'But if it does, Lindsay persisted, 'you get my diary and see it reaches London.'

  'Wing Commander,' Reader suggested, 'let's you and me stroll off quiet like on our own and have a little chat.'

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lindsay and Reader perched themselves on an isolated boulder and the sergeant glanced round the hilltop before he asked the question and gave his companion the shock of his life.

  'Got any form of identification to prove who you are, mate? And this sten isn't aimed at your guts for the fun of the thing.'

  'What the hell...'

  'We can do without the indignation bit, Wing Commander,' Reader interrupted in a voice of quiet menace. 'I've been on this underground lark long enough not to trust my own grandmother - unless she has her papers. Have you?'

  'Here you are,' Lindsay said wearily, extracting his RAF pay-book. 'I don't normally pull rank, but...'

  'So don't pull it now. The man with the gun outranks everyone. Something else I learned down there in Greece. Same bleedin' set-up. Only there they call themselves EDES and ELAS. One lot Commies, the others Royalists and both more keen on cutting each others' throats than fighting Jerry. The whole Balkans is one big shithouse...'

  While he was rambling on, Reader was examining Lindsay's identity papers with great care, even testing the thickness and feel of the material with thumb and forefinger.

  'Checking for forgery?' Lindsay queried sarcastically.

  Reader's reply stunned him and he studied the outwardly phlegmatic sergeant all over again as though he had never seen him before.

  'Checking for just that. The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse, Berlin: Work like beavers day and night producing false papers. Some of them to infiltrate their own people into the underground escape route for RAF fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border. You know what, old boy? You pass scrutiny. Lucky for you. If you hadn't passed muster I'd have been obliged to put a bullet into you after nightfall...'

  Lindsay returned the identity papers to his pocket. He was trying to absorb the complete change of accent in Reader's voice in his last four sentences. In contrast to the earlier cockney they had been spoken by a highly-educated man.

  'And, incidentally,' Reader continued with a wintry smile, 'I'm not all that heavily out-ranked by you. I'm a major. Army Intelligence …'

  'I knew there was something phoney about you,'

  Lindsay replied quietly. 'You'll excuse me – your performance was a bit hammy. I used to be a professional actor a millennium ago.'

  'I thought I was pretty good...' Reader sounded a trifle put out. 'Where did I go wrong?'

  'The usual faults they knock out of you at RADA. Exaggeration, of gesture, accent and so forth. Economy is the secret, gaining the maximum of effect with the minimum effort. The art of doing nothing can take you a long way...'

  'The object of the exercise was to fool this rabble.' That I did pull off. What a ghastly crowd they are. Positively wallowing in butchery. Some of them, anyway. They'd have been lost without a war...'

  'We have to remember this is the cradle of war throughout most of history. Why the cover role? Major!'

  They had left the boulder and wandered slowly round the crown of the hill. In the distance Milic and his men watched them uncertainly. Smoke like a poison gas cloud drifted from a nearby slope and brought with it a stench like burning flesh. Reader wrinkled his long, enquiring nose.

  'The whole Balkans stinks. Literally. My cover role? Enough about the set-up out here filtered through to London to give us something of a picture. Nobody trusts anyone. Strangers - new arrivals - are automatically suspect. It's like one of our English villages. Twenty years in the place and maybe they'll give you the time of day. Just maybe! Can you imagine the reaction of Tito if he heard Army Intelligence had arrived? From what we've gleaned he's the biggest neurotic of them all...'

  Lindsay rather liked gleaned. As they walked, Reader couldn't keep his hands still. His fingers walked up and down the barrel of the sten as though he were itching to use it. Probably he was missing his tightly-rolled Dunhill umbrella. Unless... Lindsay went on probing in his off-hand manner.

  'Care to tell me why you are out here? Why you downgraded yourself to sergeant?'

  'Cover again. We thought the sergeant touch rather good. Gives me some air of authority with the locals, but an officer, no! A Communist gang is going to take a very questioning look once an officer lands in their lap. God knows, you must have found that out by yourself now...'

  'Not really. You were going to tell me what brought you into this earthly paradise.'

  'Was I?' A hint of mockery crept into Reader's tone. 'Surely you asked me. Well, here goes. What I told you earlier - doing my cockney bit - was gospel. I'm the bloody chaperone - escort Wing Commander Lindsay out of the Balkans, Reader, they said...'

  'And who may they be?'

  'Nice bit of syntax there. The Lord's anointed. Colonel Browne. None other...'

  'He still smokes those foul cigars?'

  'When he can get them, yes. He sends you his regards. Thought you'd appreciate that out here.'

  `So you're not a radio operator at all?' Lindsay went on grimly. 'We have no communication with the outside world?'

  'Begg
ing your pardon.' The mockery had turned to mild indignation. 'Before I transferred to Intelligence I was in Signals. Came out top of the form for transmitting at high speed.'

  'So there is a hidden transmitter buried somewhere?'

  'Bet your life on it.' Reader paused, his tone sardonic now. 'Come to think of it, chum, that's what you are doing - betting your life on that box of wires and circuits. We have to get you out of here. All we need is a radio signal sent in secret. An airstrip for the Dakota from Africa to land on. The Dakota itself. Piece of cake, wouldn't you say?'

  'Major, I've just realized something,' Lindsay ruminated aloud. 'You made a big thing about my identification. I haven't seen yours yet.'

  'Thought you'd never ask...'

  Earlier Paco had reappeared in the distance, talking briefly to Milic before she resumed strolling by herself a hundred yards or so away from the two Englishmen. Lindsay examined the Army pay-book Reader handed him. He opened the stiff brown cover and checked the pages, glancing up several times.

  'That blonde girl, Paco,' he murmured, 'speaks better English than you do. In fact, she is half-English - on her mother's side. Thought you ought to know before you meet her. Security. She's a Partisan...'

  Reader took back the pay-book Lindsay held out to him and with a sleight of hand made it disappear somewhere inside his uniform. As he handed back the brown folder Lindsay found himself recalling something Reader himself had said earlier.

  The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Work like beavers.. :producing false papers...

  'Wing Commander,' Reader commented out of the blue, 'I would say you're head over heels in love with that girl. Are you?'

  'What the hell are you talking about?' Lindsay snapped.

  'Fact One: the way you said her name. Fact Two: while we've been talking you've hardly taken your eyes off her since she appeared. You watch her every movement as though you're watching a goddess. Fact Three: your expression since I started talking about her - mind your own bloody business is written all over your face...'

  'Why don't you do just that, Sergeant?' Lindsay rapped back.