The old man’s eyes watered and a large drop dangled from his nose. He pulled out a dirty rag and wiped it away. ‘You are a brave woman. Welcome,’ he said.
Marietta sighed deeply. He hadn’t recognised her. ‘Let’s get going,’ Jan said anxiously. They climbed under the tarpaulin, and settled themselves amongst the cabbages.
‘This is the plan,’ Jan muttered as they bumped uncomfortably over the rutted road. ‘We’re going to split up soon. You have enough money to get food at the station. Buy a ticket to Sokol, then walk to the castle . . .’
‘Sokol . . .?’ she gasped.
‘Ask for Max Amman. He’s expecting you, by the way. Be careful. Keep out of sight as much as possible . . .’
‘Max knows me well . . . and he’s German. This is madness.’
Jan glared at her. ‘I have my reasons for sending you there. Amman will give you the job we need and you will live in the farmhouse up the river. The one over the old cellars. Remember? I shall contact you later. Don’t worry, it’s all arranged, but you must go for the interview alone. You need a pass and a permit to drive, to draw petrol and to move around. All this will be invaluable to us. Amman will organise fingerprints . . . a photograph . . . that sort of thing. They’re very organised at the garrison.’ He laughed curtly.
Marietta lay amongst the cabbages in a state of confusion. What if she came face-to-face with Hugo? Spasms of fear were thrusting through her bowels. How could she manage to get away with this?
Half an hour later the old man gave a curt command to his horses, and, as the cart slowed, Jan helped her over the side. Within seconds the cart had rumbled away and Marietta found herself alone.
*
It was like a journey into the past. As if in a dream, she left the station and walked down the country road towards the castle. It was achingly familiar and dear. So many memories! Tears pricked in her eyes. Gazing up, she saw the swastika fluttering from the tallest spire. Then anger surged, momentarily blotting out her fear. That dreaded symbol had hounded her for six years, and it was squatting on her home like a malevolent bird of prey.
Steeling her nerves, she walked the final distance and entered the courtyard. She was startled by a sharp clatter of hooves as a horse galloped up from the river. The rider, statuesque and haughty, dismounted, flung her whip to the ground and hurried to a parked limousine.
‘Call the groom,’ she called over her shoulder to a corporal who had hastily left his sentry box and who was making a bad job of straightening his uniform. ‘I’m late. Take a message to the kitchens,’ she snapped. She glanced at the sky and Marie looked up, too. Not a cloud was in sight. It was a perfect July afternoon.
‘Cocktails on the balcony. Dinner in the Persian room. Cook’s special onion soup, poached fish, wildfowl in burgundy, red cabbage with apples, new potatoes, and red wine sauce.’
Marietta gulped with hunger and envy.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she frowned as she caught sight of Marietta.
Marietta curtseyed. ‘Zimmerman, Ma’am,’ she said. ‘I’m here about a job as a dairymaid. I have an appointment with Herr Amman.’
‘Get along then. Don’t stand there gaping.’
She started the engine, reversed and swung round, tyres squealing. Marietta guessed she had just had her first sight of Hugo’s whore.
She found she was shaking with fright as she mounted the old stone steps. She heard a shout and cringed.
A corporal was racing towards her. He caught hold of her shoulder and pushed her down the steps. She landed in a heap, bruising her ankle. This was it, she thought. She’d been recognised.
‘What do you think you’re doing going up to the main door?’ he fumed. ‘Take the servants’ entrance.’
What a blunder! She hurried to the side door. Otto the cook was gone, she realised, peering into the kitchen. In his place was a huge woman, with bulging biceps and big red hands. She was carving a side of beef with gritty determination. There was no shortage of food here. The kitchen had been refurbished to look like a hospital canteen, gleaming with stainless steel.
Max’s office had always been along the passage and third on the right, but after the bright sunlight, she couldn’t see down the gloomy corridor. Half-blinded, she stumbled forward into the light room ahead. She found herself staring up at a portrait of her mother hanging beside the window. Tears stung her eyes for the walls were covered with photographs: Louis and her as children, Ingrid sitting with grandmother’s dog, and there she was with Trudi, her horse, at a gymkhana. Dozens and dozens of family pictures had been rescued and hung in Max’s study, a permanent reminder to everyone of her face. She struggled to stay calm. Then she heard a voice behind her and spun round.
‘Touching, aren’t they?’
Marietta was startled. She gave the Nazi salute.
‘Oh, you don’t have to do that in here, Nurse Zimmerman,’ Max said. He hurried to lock the door. ‘I don’t know who you really are and I don’t want to know. I was . . . let us say . . . “persuaded” to give you this job. I’m not in the Resistance and I’m not a Nazi either. I’m just a servant.’
Max walked behind his desk and sat there staring at her. ‘Hm! Well . . . it has all been arranged. The general is anxious to help relatives of soldiers at the Eastern Front, so it didn’t take long to talk him into taking you on. You don’t even have to see him. Jan was anxious that you should not.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Just remember . . . the less I see of you, the happier I shall be. I don’t want to be involved in anything you Resistance might be up to. Got it?’
She nodded.
‘Now . . .’ He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Something about you worries me.’ For several frozen moments he studied her intently. He stood up abruptly. ‘We must attend to dozens of details. Soon you’ll be so bound in red tape you’ll find it hard to move.’
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to fight off a feeling of unreality.
‘Remember to say “Sir”. I can see you’re not used to that.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘I’ve been trying to work out why you people want one of your own in this position. You seem a nice woman. I feel sorry for you. Your so-called Freedom Fighters are a tough bunch of power-mad, pseudo-politicians, jockeying each other to get into power at the end of the war. Jan is the leader of the Czech Communist Party.’ He watched for her reaction. ‘I can see that doesn’t surprise you. I know a thing or two about Jan. You can tell him that if he puts pressure on me again I shall do likewise. And don’t think a knife in my back would solve the problem, because I have documents hidden that will come to light if I die.’
‘And if you die by accident, Sir?’
‘Nurse Zimmerman, my role as your protector lasts only as long as I live. Now . . . let’s get going.’
An hour later Marietta was driving a van towards the dairy, half a mile upstream from the castle. She parked in the courtyard and gazed around wistfully. This was one of the oldest properties on her estates, built in the fifteenth century. Once it had been the castle winemaker’s house. Beneath were the cellars, connected to the river by a downhill passage, where wine barrels had been rolled to waiting river steamers. She had played here as a child with Louis and Ingrid. In those days, it had been occupied by one of the Kolar family, now the door was swinging on one hinge and several windows were broken.
Marietta unloaded the provisions and cleaning materials Max had given her. As she walked inside, she felt sad to see the old place so neglected, but thrilled to be in her own home. She should start cleaning, but she was exhausted. The bed was rickety, rats were racing in the loft, the rooms were filthy, but she flung herself on the bed, pulled the blankets over her and briefly allowed herself to think of Bill before falling asleep.
Chapter Fifty-Five
A long and scary month passed before Marietta had her first piece of information about the mine. A Volksdeutsche caterer, whose business was exclusively for Nazi gatherings, aske
d her for more eggs, chicken and cream than she had. He had the permits to buy another forty chickens, he told her, but no supplies were available.
‘I’ll try my best,’ she said. ‘The farms are almost barren nowadays. I don’t know what’s going to happen. D’you have to have forty? And what’s the absolute latest deadline for them?’
‘I told you . . . tomorrow at noon. Von Hesse will have my licence if I let him down. Thirty bigwigs from Berlin are flying in tomorrow night. I have to supply a light lunch inside Richard’s Mine, and a big supper later at the castle.’
‘You mean, inside the camp?’
‘No, I mean the mine. It’s not the first time, either. They fly the delicacies to the runway on top of the volcano . . . it’s a new arrangement ever since they got melted icecream. The train takes too long, you see. It’s the top brass coming this time. I know because he’s having Russian caviar. Danish does for the rank and file.’
‘Messy business eating inside that old tin mine, I should think,’ she asked.
‘Can’t be messy everywhere. Somewhere they’ve got a place for table napkins, cut glass decanters, silver cutlery . . . nothing but the best for this lot. Best cigars, too.’
She began to make inquiries.
From Max Amman, Marietta learned that Hugo went into Theresienstadt Camp at least twice a week. Lately, he had rushed out there at midnight, after some emergency telephone calls.
Marietta went off to search for forty chickens in a thoughtful mood.
Shortly before dusk, Marietta steered her wheezing old lorry down towards Helen Kranzler’s farm, for she had always bred the finest chicken. The farm road wound under tall elms, past hawthorne hedges and clumps of sweet-williams, buttercups and daisies in the hedgerows.
It was past 7 p.m. but the slave gangs of broken, starving men were still toiling in the fields and two armed guards were lolling against the trees smoking as they watched the labourers working.
The farmhouse was in a sad state with hanging shutters, peeling paint and a damaged roof. Broken farming implements lay scattered around the yard. Two small children stood biting their nails, staring distrustfully at Marietta, while she spoke to their mother.
‘You vulture,’ the woman snarled, before Marietta was inside the door. ‘Preying on poor people. My children are starving. Look at them! Their father is in a concentration camp and we are robbed of all we have.’
She crumpled in a chair and burst into tears. ‘I can’t fulfil my quota,’ she sobbed. ‘Now they’ll take the cattle away. Can I help it if the cows dry up before their time? I don’t get enough fodder for them. It’s the same with the chickens. So you want me to slaughter good fowls for the pot.’
Marietta felt helpless in the face of the woman’s anguish. ‘Everything was stolen from us,’ Hella sobbed. ‘Our poultry and pigs were sent to Germany. I have one sow left, but her piglets are registered at birth and taken away at four months and God help us if one of them has died . . . I have ten fowls and the bastards expect forty eggs a week from me.’
‘Hush, don’t cry.’ Marietta crouched beside Hella and held her hand. ‘Everyone is suffering. I’ll contact the Resistance and see if they can do anything to help you. Be brave . . . You must find a way to hide some of your livestock,’ Marietta pleaded. ‘Please, listen to me. The Germans are going to lose the war. The Allies are winning in North Africa, English bombers are destroying German cities, two thousand German factories have been destroyed so far. Eventually the Germans will be beaten. You must hang on for your children and for when your husband comes home. Try to be strong. Don’t give up. Be brave, for the sake of your children.’
It was always the same, she thought bitterly. The people were starving and devoid of hope. They no longer had the courage to fight back. There and then, she decided to make it her mission to persuade the suffering farm wives to support the Resistance and to help each other.
She missed her deadline for the chickens and the cream, arriving two hours late, but with a promise to help out with the preparations. Despite four hours hard work in the caterer’s kitchen, she could not glean any more information. It was Jan who made the big breakthrough. He had plied a train driver with some rare schnapps and after some of the fiery spirit had been drunk, learned that prisoners who had worked within the mine were regularly sent east to the Polish death camps. They were due to pick up another consignment, the driver explained. He was so befuddled by drink he never remembered he had told Jan the date planned for the next shipment.
*
Marietta was armed with a British-made sub-machine gun loaded with thirty rounds and she was standing alone in the dark, guarding her lorry and shivering with fright. She felt ashamed that her stomach was clenched into painful knots and her hands were wet and slipping on the barrel.
A minute later the train came into view. It was clanking loudly as it slowed. The heavy, darkened wagons seemed to pass in slow motion. Minutes later an orange flare seared her eyeballs. Then came the sound of the explosion. Silhouetted against the flare she saw the shape of the first engines rear up, stand on end, and tumble slowly over.
She heard the rattle of the guards’ machine guns as Jan’s squad opened fire. The noise of the carriages smashing against each other almost drowned the screams of agony.
Out of the darkness the bulky shape of a man loomed towards her. Who was it? She aimed her gun and hesitated. The figure was almost upon her and still she was searching for some identification. Almost too late she saw a swastika glittering at his throat. As his gun swung towards her she tugged at her trigger. Her gun shot up in a massive recoil. When she opened her eyes she saw the German soldier lying still on the ground. She gagged at the sight of the tearing hole in his chest and the blood gushing into the earth.
A terrifying silence had settled around her. What did it mean? Were the Resistance all dead?
It seemed like hours before a line of men came stumbling towards her. Were they men? They were shambling, broken figures who could hardly force one leg in front of the next. Seeing those skeletal faces and sunken eyes and smelling their fear and their unwashed bodies, Marietta was propelled into the past. Unable to move, she stood transfixed, hearing again the camp dogs, the guards and their schlags, the frightened eyes of the new intakes.
Jan was shaking her. ‘Get them into the lorry,’ he was screaming. ‘Move, damn you! What’s got into you?’
Shame washed through her as she moved to the truck. Within minutes the prisoners were loaded and Marietta drove slowly towards the river, trying to get a grip on her shaking hands and panting breath. Would she never get there? She was trembling so violently she could hardly drive. At last she reached the rendezvous where Kolar and his men were waiting.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kolar demanded.
‘Nothing. It went off as planned. Jan’s coming.’
‘You look sick. Take it easy.’
Within five minutes the prisoners had been loaded on to the waiting boats. They would be hidden by the peasants. Marietta was left alone to watch the dawn break and overcome her fears as best she could. It was the sight and smell of the prisoners that had propelled her back to those nightmare years in the camp. Next time, she vowed, she would be more prepared.
*
Jan came by way of the river at midnight. ‘We’re in luck,’ he told her with a smile. ‘God smiles on you. Listen to this. Two of the prisoners we rescued from the train were working inside Richard’s Mine. The mine has been converted into a massive research station. It’s heavily guarded, with access only from the railway station inside Theresienstadt. The train goes underground most of the way. The prisoners think that they’re building some kind of rocket. It’s so secret that every six months the slave labour is replaced for security reasons. Rumour has it that the old batch are always executed. These two were en-route to the gas ovens. I’ve left them both down there.’ He gestured towards the cellars. ‘Don’t feed them too much all at once. Little and often is the best way, or they might die o
n you.’
Marietta found the two men completely exhausted, but after a while they began to tell her about themselves. Willi Maeier had been a goldsmith and Hans Schwerin a banker. Maeier was a dark haired, sorrowful man, with large, hooded brown eyes, long delicate fingers and an olive complexion. He was so weak, he kept falling asleep as he talked to Marietta. Schwerin was more robust. She guessed that he had once been an athlete. He had red frizzy hair and blue eyes and freckles on his cheeks, but his eyes were haunted and he coughed continually.
Schwerin was agitated. ‘They’ll come looking for us,’ he said. ‘We know too much. We shouldn’t be here. It’s not fair on you.’ He broke off into another fit of coughing. ‘I must tell you about the mine . . .’
‘Please don’t tire yourself,’ Marietta said gently. ‘An expert is coming to debrief you.’
She broke off as she heard a shot in the distance. The sound of the searching troops and dogs was close. Maeier’s frightened eyes sent thrusts of painful fear through Marietta’s stomach. The Germans had launched a massive manhunt for the lost prisoners and the terrorists who had wrecked the train. All day the forests had been echoing with shots, shouts and barking dogs. The three spent a sleepless night huddled in the cellars, but at dawn the troops moved further south.
*
Hugo’s rage was uncontrollable. The Camp Commandant, the train driver and the guards were court martialled and punished. During the interrogations, it was learned that one of the guards had sighted a young woman with the terrorists, but that fact was of no interest to Hugo.
Losing the men who had worked inside the research plant was the very thing that he had feared the most. That was why he had ordered that the slave workers should be executed on-site. The Camp Commandant had disobeyed his orders in sending them to Auschwitz.
For two weeks, SS troops combed the forests and the hills and searched every house for miles. Hugo managed to conceal the fact that some workers from the mine had been among the escapees. His career was at stake. Would the Czechs be clever enough to interrogate the prisoners and find out about the V-3? he wondered. And if so, would this leak reach the Allies? Hugo had one way of finding out. He sat down and thought about Ingrid for a while. Eventually he picked up the telephone and put a call through to his SS agent in Berlin who controlled Paddy, the Irishman.
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