Bright Dart
Page 23
Kastner said, ‘You know something, Doctor? I really don’t care.
You can save your speech for the People’s Court and Judge Roland Freisler.’
Two determined men who were willing to sacrifice their lives might get close enough to Bormann to kill him and perhaps only Gerhardt and this unknown young officer were involved but somehow Kastner rather doubted it. Gerhardt would need help to return to Germany and to stay at large inside the Reich. If 175
that were true, then the conspiracy was on too large a scale for just two men to be its spearhead and perhaps there were other assassins waiting to strike.
A system of check points established on every road could seal and quarantine the city until this possibility had been eliminated.
He thought of alerting the local Wehrmacht units for this task but then he remembered that on 20th July, Stauffenberg had counted on the army to arrest Goebbels and seize the main government offices. In the circumstances, he considered it prudent to make do with the special guard company until they could be reinforced by other Waffen SS troops.
To relieve the escort and to disperse the gathering crowds in the Prinzipalmarkt he would first have to persuade Bormann to return to Rastenburg, and once that hurdle had been overcome, he could then announce to the assembled and now restless Gauleiters that their conference had been cancelled.
From the moment he’d started to investigate Gerhardt all the evidence had seemed to indicate that Bormann, possibly with Himmler’s tacit approval, was at the centre of a conspiracy to end the war but now suddenly Kastner was forced to abandon all his preconceived ideas about the man. Bormann, in agreeing to address the meeting of Gauleiters which Lammers, using his influential position in the Party had organised, was the victim not the instigator of the plot. He wondered how he could have been so blind and then he remembered that at every critical stage of his inquiry, Kaltenbrunner had pointed him in a different direction. The thought triggered a series of dangerous ideas and he dismissed them hurriedly from his mind for there were more important matters to attend to. Kastner reached for the phone and called the airfield at Loddenheide.
As they moved through the outer suburbs of Münster there was still no sign of the Mercedes staff car which they should have been following. Assuming that Quilter had not been mistaken, it seemed to Ashby that either Gerhardt had deserted them at the last minute which, unless he’d taken leave of his senses, appeared unlikely, or else he’d been picked up by the Gestapo.
Like Quilter, he’d been inclined at first to think that the unexpected substitution of an open tourer for a closed saloon was just a simple foul-up, but now he was coming round to the view that there was a more sinister explanation.
He was faced with a simple choice—either he called it off now or else they went ahead regardless of the risks involved—and with the canal bridge in sight, Ashby knew that he only had a couple of minutes left in which to make up his mind. If the alarm 176
was out, it was reasonable to suppose that there would be some outward and visible sign of activity on the part of the police, the SS or the army, but as far as he could see, nothing much was happening. It might be different in the old part of the city but here on the outskirts everything seemed normal enough. To stick to the original plan was asking for trouble but there was another way into the Rathaus.
Ashby said, ‘You see that building ahead? That’s the offices of the Railway Board; I want you to turn left at that point.’
‘Isn’t that taking us out of our way?’ said Cowper.
‘That’s right, there’s been a change of plan and when you get to the station you’ll turn right, go past the “Angel” fortifications and then stop in Klosterstrasse when I tell you to. We’re going in through the sewers.’
‘How? You said yourself that you needed a key to open one of those inspection shafts.’
Ashby opened a pocket on his blouse and took out a T-shaped key. ‘Courtesy of Gerhardt’s friends,’ he said laconically, ‘it Came with the map of the drainage system.’
‘It’s good for any shaft, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what happens after I’ve dropped you in Klosterstrasse?’
‘You follow the inner ring road past the Hindenburg Platz and then turn on to Route 54. After a kilometre you want to keep your eyes open for a small brook passing under the road because I want you to stop two hundred metres beyond that point and wait for us. We’ll be coming out through an inspection shaft in a side street behind you on the left-hand side of the road.’
Cowper said, ‘How long do I give you, Colonel?’
‘About an hour and a half unless anything goes wrong.’
‘And then what?’
‘You’d better make it to the Dutch border.’
A tram passed them going in the opposite direction and then the cylindrical tube of the inspection shaft, which looked like a giant toadstool, was in sight. Cowper eased his foot off the accelerator pedal, pulled into the kerb and stopped abreast of it.
He sat there behind the wheel, listening to the engine idling and watched a road-sweeper clearing the leaves from the gutter while Ashby climbed out of the cab and crossed the pavement. A minute passed and then another and yet another, and his fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the spokes of the steering wheel, and then presently he heard a scuffling of feet in the back of the truck, and then someone banged on the door, and with an audible sigh of relief, he shifted the lever into first gear. In his anxiety to get away his foot came off the clutch too fast and the truck, 177
leaping forward like a startled rabbit, suddenly stalled on him.
He closed his eyes and turned the starter motor over, hoping against hope that the engine would fire first time, and for once his unspoken prayer was answered.
A voice said, ‘What’s going on?’
Cowper turned his head. The policeman had one foot balanced on the hub cap and his face was on a level with the open side window. The man was curious but not unfriendly.
‘We’ve been ordered to check the sewers as a precaution,’
Cowper said casually.
‘I don’t envy you.’ The man withdrew his foot from the hub cap and stepped back. ‘You wouldn’t catch me doing it.’
‘Nor me,’ said Cowper.
He let the clutch in slowly and this time the Opel didn’t stall.
*
Kastner’s face was white with anger. He looked from Gerhardt to Wollweber and then back again.
‘Why is this criminal not in handcuffs?’ he snarled. ‘And why is he in SS uniform?’
Gerhardt said, ‘Must I remind you that as an officer of …’
‘You’re a filthy traitor in anybody’s language, a disgrace to the German army and you defile that uniform.’ He knocked the hat from Gerhardt’s head and slapped him across the face. ‘You insignificant, conceited little man, what right have you to betray the Führer?’
‘What right has he to destroy the German people?’
‘A philosopher,’ said Kastner, ‘we have a philosopher on our hands, Wollweber.’
‘And a man of action, Herr Oberführer.’
‘Oh yes, there’s no doubt about that, and he has friends too who are prepared to help him in this enterprise.’ He studied Gerhardt carefully. ‘Where are they now,’ he said, ‘these friends of yours?’
‘We came alone.’
‘And you failed just as your friends will also fail.’
‘I’ve already told you we were just two in number.’
Kastner glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Why persist in lying? In a few minures Bormann will be on his way back to Rastenburg and this hall will be empty and we shall be waiting for them. They can’t possibly escape, so why not make it easy for yourself?’
‘I repeat, we came alone.’
‘Your wife has been held in the Lehrterstrasse Prison in Berlin for the past week; do you want her to rot there for ever?’
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‘I have nothing to say.’
‘And Frau Lammers?’
‘What about her?’
‘I left her under guard at the house.’
‘Fetch her,’ he said crisply, ‘and let’s see how brave the good Doctor will be when you start questioning her in his presence.’
The Guard of Honour, numbering some forty officers and men who’d been drawn up in the Prinzipalmarkt to await Bormann’s arrival, had already dispersed by the time the Gauleiters emerged from the council chambers. Broken down into small groups, they were now moving through the suburbs to establish road blocks on the outer limits of the city. Including the standing patrol in the Syndikatplatz and those sentries still inside the building, there now remained rather less than twenty men in the immediate vicinity of the Rathaus which, in Kastner’s view, was more than sufficient since he was labouring under the false impression that Bormann was on his way back to Rastenburg. And this might have been the case had Bormann not been obliged to wait at Loddenheide airfield while his aircraft was refuelled for the return journey. Faced with this delay he became impatient and then as his resentment mounted, he announced that once he’d informed Himmler, he intended to drive into Münster and assume command of the Waffen SS.
The bottle was empty now and Jost was sprawled in the chair, a dead cigar clenched between the fingers of his right hand. This was a day to forget and he’d set out with the intention of drinking himself into a stupor, but somehow the Schnapps had failed him.
By rights, he should have been insensible but all he experienced was a feeling of nausea and a splitting headache. The bile rose at the back of his throat and although he fought against it, his stomach began to heave and, rising to his feet, he half ran, half staggered across the kitchen and vomited into the sink. He threw the dead cigar away and holding on to the draining board for support, was sick again. Heartburn seared his throat now and reaching for a chipped cup, he filled it with water from the tap and gulped it down until some of the sour acidic taste left his mouth and he felt a little better.
Jost had spent two and half years in the Airborne Infantry before he was invalided out in the winter of ’41 and, although they were still a long way off, to his experienced ears the sound of army vehicles on the move was unmistakable. It was quite 179
illogical of course but he was convinced that they were coming for him, and perhaps as a gesture of defiance, he went out into the yard to meet them.
He could see them clearly now, a Kubelwagen and two Opel trucks, and they were travelling at speed as if their business was urgent and suddenly his nerve failed him and he ran back into the house. Lying somewhere in the kitchen hearth was the death pill which the Englishman had given him for such a moment as this and it had become supremely important that he should find it before they arrived.
And the whine of their propshafts grew louder and he judged that they were only a few hundred metres from him; and then he saw it and scooped it up with a cry of triumph, and for a few passing seconds he stood there before the mantelpiece looking at the photograph of his wife taken a couple of months before she died of cancer in the summer of ’43, and then he opened his mouth, inserted the cyanide capsule and bit on it.
The trucks went on past the farm until they reached the Wolbeck road where they stopped to drop off a detail of six men who were to establish the first of Kastner’s check points on the outer limits of the city.
They moved in single file on the raised footpath above the sewer and the handkerchiefs which covered mouth and nose offered little protection against the dank and fetid smell. They could hear the quiet urgent pattering of feet and sometimes the beam of light from Ashby’s torch would hold a rat transfixed in its glare. They were five hundred metres from the Rathaus at their start point but down there in that dark and foul-smelling world, they were forced to move slowly, halting frequently to check their bearings in case they should take a wrong turning. Ashby was navigating by dead reckoning with Ottaway counting off the paces in a low voice and tapping him on the shoulder whenever they had covered a round hundred.
After one hundred and twenty they met the Ludgeristrasse sewer, turned right and began to walk up a slight gradient. Water cascaded from the outlet pipes which, laid beneath the raised footpath at irregular intervals, drained the side streets and fed the main channel with waste. It was possible, just possible, to divorce the mind from the present but always the odour was there to remind them of the danger; if there was any marsh gas drifting towards them down the tunnel they had no means of detecting its presence and no means of combating its effects.
Ottaway tapped Ashby on the shoulder. ‘I make it that we’ve covered three hundred metres since we entered this section,’ he 180
said. ‘In another twenty or so we should hit the Klemensstrasse intersection, that is if we are heading in the right direction.’
‘We’re all right by the compass.’
Ottaway stopped abruptly. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we should be over the tunnel now, Colonel.’
Ashby knelt at the edge of the path and flashed the torch up and down the length of the gallery.
Presently he said, ‘I think I can see it.’ He sat down, twisted the upper part of his body through almost ninety degrees and then gripping the stonework, lowered himself into the channel.
He pushed upstream for some twenty metres and then called back, ‘I’ve found it; you’d better come down and join me.’
Contrary to what Ashby had thought when he’d studied the map, there was no footpath in the Klemensstrasse tunnel and, despite keeping to the side, the water level almost reached to the top of their short boots and, if that were possible, the smell of excrement was even stronger. It affected some worse than others and Stack, who was the last man in the file, was constantly retching. The sludge on the cobbled surface was yet another hazard and each man dreaded the thought of slipping beneath the foul water.
Ashby, still in the lead, moved slowly, keeping his torch trained on the wall so that he should not miss the feeder pipe which led into Gruetgasse. It turned out to be set at a higher level and the sound of water trickling into the main channel was the first indication he had that they were almost upon it. The tube was also a damn sight narrower than he had anticpated.
He stopped, signalled them to draw close and then, pointing his torch into the mouth of the tube, said, ‘We may have to walk bent double but this passage leads right into the back yard of the Rathaus. We’ve got about sixty to seventy metres to cover before we reach the shaft which goes up to street level. We’ll be coming out in the alley which is just around the corner from the Syndikatplatz where I am told there is a standing patrol of six men. I shall raise the manhole cover, set it to one side and climb out as if it was my business to be there, and I reckon to be able to take them before they know what’s happening. Up to that point we should have the advantage of surprise but from then on it’s going to be a hard grind. We shall have to move fast and once we’re inside the council chambers there’ll be no time for any subtleties—we’re simply going to bomb everything and shoot everyone who stands in our way. It’s going to be Quilter’s job to make sure that no one cuts us off from the manhole because it’s our only lifeline.’ Ashby paused a moment and then said, ‘Anybody got any questions?’
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Nobody had but he offered them a crumb of comfort. ‘Two to one says we can do it and get clear away in the ensuing panic.’
No one seemed inclined to place a bet.
Ashby heaved himself up into the feeder pipe and bent almost double, began to edge his way forward; one by one the rest followed him.
The time was 1548 hours.
With one eye constantly on the rear-view mirror, Cowper hummed a tuneless dirge and tried to ignore the sallow, dark-haired girl of sixteen who kept ogling him as she cycled aimlessly up and down the road. It was very clear
from the number of sour looks which came his way that most passers-by thought he was encouraging the girl to flirt with him but nothing could have been further from the truth. She was fast becoming a nuisance as well as an embarrassment which he could well do without. On her present form, he thought it was only a matter of time before she plucked up sufficient courage to accost him, and Cowper wondered how he would then get rid of her without causing a scene: He felt like telling her to go and try her luck outside the Aegidii Barracks where there were any number of men only too happy to oblige.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back in the seat. He spared a thought for the others who were moving through the sewers and wondered how they were taking it. You had to hand it to Ashby, he had all the determination in the world and where most people would have called it off when Gerhardt deserted them, he’d simply changed the plan, and he hadn’t been content with a minor adjustment but had introduced a startlingly new concept. And for some reason, people like Quilter and Stack and Frick and even Ottaway had accepted it without a murmur. Perhaps, like Ashby, they really believed that in killing Bormann they would start a revolution that would end the war.
The girl, going through every trick in the book, stopped just in front of the truck and contrived to get her skirt hooked over the saddle as she dismounted, and she made sure that he had the opportunity of seeing a bare expanse of thigh before she adjusted her clothing with an air of false modesty. She looked round to see what effect this exhibition had had but Cowper’s eyes were elsewhere. They were locked on the rear-view mirror for, in the distance he thought he could see a number of military vehicles moving towards him at speed.
Two BMW motor-cycle combinations and a Kubelwagen stopped just short of the stream and then manoeuvred in such a fashion that it soon became apparent that they were intending to form a road block. There was no doubt in his mind that before very long 182
they would begin to take an unhealthy interest in the Opel truck which was parked not three hundred metres from their position.