Faked Passports (9 page)

Time would have hung heavily on their hands had it not been for the magazines which Magda provided, out of which von Lutz read translations to Charlton, and also attempted to teach the young airman German.

Freddie was not a good linguist and he progressed slowly but by the time they had been in the cottage for a fortnight he could speak enough German to ask for anything he wanted and to carry on a halting conversation. Each night he and von Lutz got air and exercise by walking in the woods at the back of the cottage, since after the first few days it became apparent that the Nazis who had been left at the house to await the appearance of the Baron still had no suspicion that he was in the neighbourhood and, after depleting his cellar, went to bed at a regular hour.

By Saturday, the 18th of November. Gregory had recovered sufficiently to be able to get up for the first time and by the following Tuesday he had his arm out of the sling. The wound
was only a small one, and once the poison had been checked and the inflammation had gone down it had healed rapidly.

It was during this week-end that they heard the first news of the Czech rebellion. The village schoolmaster had returned from his unit in Prague on special leave, to see his dying mother, and, according to his account, at least twelve, and possibly more, Czech students had been shot by the Gestapo for anti-German demonstrations. Baron von Neurath, as Governor of the Protectorate had ordered the Universities to be closed for three years. Prague was in a state of open revolt when the schoolmaster left and he said that the anti-German feeling was so strong that even before the revolt German soldiers had not been allowed out at night in the city in parties of less than six, for fear of assassination.

The account of conditions there as retailed by Magda reminded Gregory of the state of things in Ireland after the Great War and he recalled the stories that he had heard about British officers, stationed in Dublin, being sandbagged and thrown into the Liffey. That the extremist section of the Irish still bore Britain a bitter grudge was evidenced by the activities of the I.R.A.; out of which the German broadcasts made much capital. It had recently been reported that their fanatics had brought off four successful bomb outrages in the West End of London, and the Nazis were cock-a-hoop about it.

By Thursday, the fifteenth day after he had received his injury, Gregory was able to use his arm again without any danger of the wound's reopening. In himself he was now very fit and for some days he had been able to accompany von Lutz and Charlton on their nightly walk in the woods, which was the only exercise they dared to take and a great relief to them after having been cooped up all day in the loft for fear of running into the two Nazis who were billeted in the manor-house.

On Friday the 24th, the news was by no means so good for the two Englshmen and they had to repress their feelings to the best of their ability as Magda recounted, with a glee that she did not attempt to conceal, the results of Hitler's releasing one of his much-vaunted secret weapons, the magnetic mine.

Apparently the campaign had been launched the previous week-end and twenty-five ships were already reported to have fallen victims to the new weapon. That the majority of them were neutrals did not seem to cause Magda any concern, since like many Germans her theory of warfare was, ‘all who are not with us are against us'. In secret Gregory had a certain sympathy
for her attitude as it was entirely owing to his own complete unscrupulousness against his enemies that he had survived to the age of thirty-nine.

That Friday Magda also brought news that Himmler had explained the Munich bomb plot. Georg Elser, a thirty-six-year-old workman, had been arrested and had confessed to having planted the bomb at the order of Otto Strasser, a former associate of Hitler's who had turned against him and was now said to be directing the anti-Nazi Black Front from Paris. According to Himmler the British Secret Service was also involved and two of its members, Best and Stevens, had been arrested on the Dutch frontier trying to come into Germany on November the 9th.

As they were said to be attempting to come
into
Germany the day
after
the bomb had exploded this hardly made sense. But the more intelligent Germans had long since given up trying to make sense out of the so often contradictory statements of the Nazi leaders who were obviously using all the influence they had to sway the Fuehrer and the German people in favour of their individual policies.

By the middle of this the third week after the abortive
Putsch
Gregory was beginning to get restive. He pointed out that, grateful as he and Charlton were to von Lutz for concealing them, they could not remain there indefinitely. Every day and every night of his convalescence he had spent hours of misery wondering what had become of Erika. With iron control he had curbed his impatience to be off to Berlin in search of news of her until he should be really fit to face hardships and danger again. Now he grudged every further hour's delay. Freddie, too, had remained inactive only through necessity. The thought that if he could get into Holand he would be able to see Angela and patch up his quarrel with her made him discount the difficulties and perils of such a journey. Only on account of Gregory's state had he refrained from urging an attempt to get out of Germany earlier. Neither disclosed to the other his special reason for being so desperately anxious to set off, but once the subject was broached it was clear that both were in favour of starting at the earliest possible moment.

Von Lutz declared that he intended to stay where he was until the two Nazis had become tired of sitting doing nothing in his house, when he would be able to move to it and remain in hiding in more comfortable quarters; but he expressed his willingness to aid the two Englishmen by every means in his power.

The question was raised and settled on the morning of Sunday, the 26th, and when Magda came to the cottage that afternoon von Lutz discussed the matter with her; upon which it was agreed that she should come to the cottage again that night, after the two Nazis had gone to bed, bringing with her a complete outfit of the Baron's civilian clothes for Charlton, a civilian overcoat for Gregory and a small stock of tinned goods—from a store that had been laid in before the war—to serve as iron rations until the fugitives got well away from the district.

The wintry daylight was already fading by the time Magda left and darkness fell soon after, but they knew that they had to wait for hours yet before it would be safe for her to leave the house with the things she was to bring and make her way back to them by the forest path. Von Lutz drew a rough map of the surrounding country as a guide for them in the first part of their flight but there were no other preparations they could make, and now that they were keyed up to start the time seemed to hang interminably. At last, shortly before midnight, Magda arrived, but she carried no bundle and one glance was enough to show that she was in a state of great distress.

Her father questioned her anxiously but she only stared at him, wild-eyed and speechless. Gregory took her by the arm and shook her. Suddenly she burst into tears and between her sobs the whole sordid story came out. One of the Nazis, a brawny young man named Carl Dietrich, had taken a fancy to her immediately on his arrival at the house and had been paying her the most unwelcome attentions ever since. These had led up to violent scenes in which he had demanded to know how she, the daughter of a traitor colonel, dared to put on airs with a member of the Black Guards, Hitler's chosen legion, picked for their strength and fitness, whom any German girl should be proud to sleep with. She had not told her father this before, for fear of what he might do, but recently, with no-one in the house to whom she could turn for protection, her situation had become desperate; on several occasions during the past week Dietrich had tried to get into her room.

That night he had smashed the lock on the door and forced his way in. Contrary to his expectations, he had not found Magda in bed, but busy packing up the parcel of clothes she meant to bring to the cottage.

For a moment it had seemed that he guessed the purpose of her preparations although she had swiftly assured him that the parcel was intended for a Brandenburg charity organisation.
But she had felt it so vital to her father's safety that the Nazi's mind should be immediately and completely diverted from the question of the clothes that instead of calling her mother and the servants to assist her to get him out of her room she had begged him to be quiet so as not to wake them. That was enough to turn his thoughts to his original purpose in breaking in on her and to convince him that her resistance so far had only been feigned. With an ear-to-ear grin he had begun to unbuckle his belt and she had forced herself to allow him to make love to her. After he left her she had not dared to bring the clothes since, if he remembered about them, she would have to produce them the following day and let him see her dispatch them to Brandenburg.

As he listened von Lutz went white with rage and his hands began to tremble. Immediately Magda had finished sobbing out her tale he declared his intention of going up to the house there and then to drag the Nazi from his bed and shoot him.

Gregory, Charlton and, above all, Magda endeavoured to dissuade him from this step which would almost inevitably cost him his own life, but the thought that his daughter had been seduced, against her will, by one of these blackguards made the Prussian nobleman furiously reject any counsel of caution.

It had taken the best part of twenty minutes to piece together Magda's half-incoherent ramblings and get the full story from her. For another quarter of an hour they stood there m the kitchen sitting-room, wrangling together and trying to turn her outraged father from his purpose, but at last, seeing that the Baron was determined on vengeance, Gregory said with a wry grin:

“All right; since you're absolutely set on it Charlton and I will go with you and we'll settle the two of them. No man who wears the uniform of a Nazi Storm-Trooper is fit to live. You'll then have at least some chance of getting away with us. They probably only have to report to their boss in Brandenburg once a week and if we're lucky we'll have several days' start before it's known that your unwelcome guests have been eliminated.”

In spite of Magda's renewed pleading they began to make their preparations. The Baron had his automatic and plenty of ammunition for it; Freddie had the old-fashioned revolver with which von Lutz had furnished him on their first day in the woods together while Gregory was still delirious. In order that they might put up a good fight if their hiding-place were discovered,
and they had to resist an attack, four sporting-guns had also been smuggled to it from the manor-house by Hans. Gregory selected one of these and stuffed his pockets full of cartridges.

“Ready?” asked von Lutz impatiently.

The other two nodded, and shaking hands with Hans Foldar and his wife they thanked them most heartily for all that they had done for them. With a brief glance at Magda, who was now weeping on
Frau
Foldar's ample bosom, the Baron threw open the cottage door.

The moon, which was at full that night was hidden by dense banks of cloud so it was dark outside and he stood clearly outlined against the light within. As he moved towards the open doorway Gregory's quick ears caught the scraping of feet on the garden path. Temporarily blinded by the bright light in the cottage he could see nothing out there in the black night but he felt a sudden apprehension.

Had Carl Dietrich, after all guessed the real use to which the clothes Magda was packing up were to be put? Had he
not
gone to bed as she supposed, but roused his companion, lain in wait and followed her out through the woods?

Next second he knew. A guttural voice rapped out: “Hands up,
Herr Oberst-Baron
! You are our prisoner.”

It was Gregory who gained thirty seconds' breathing space for his friends. He had been carrying his shot-gun waist-high, at the ready; without an instant's hesitation he loosed off both barrels into the darkness.

The double bang sounded like a thunder-clap as its echo rolled across the still countryside and the bright flash lit the scene as vividly as a streak of lightning. There were not only the two Storm-Troopers whom they expected to see a dozen yards away, but a whole group bunched up round the garden gate; dark figures caught by the flash in the act of drawing their guns as they ran forward.

Had von Lutz fired his automatic, or Charlton the old revolver, it was unlikely, since neither of them could see their target, that their bullets would have hit more than one or, at most, two of the oncoming group. But the wide spread of the shot from Gregory's double-barrelled fowling-piece caused absolute havoc.

Cries, curses, groans rent the night as the tiny pellets zipped into the faces and limbs of the Nazis like the blows from a hundred whips, causing them to reel about in utter confusion.

Within a second of having fired Gregory was back inside the cottage. Von Lutz and Charlton tumbled in beside him and the three of them swung-to the heavy door.

“
Mein Gott!
There are ten or a dozen of them!” gasped the Baron. “And I thought there were only two!”

“Directly Dietrich smelt a rat he must have telephoned for reinforcements from Brandenburg,” said Gregory, “but they've got out here mighty quickly.”

“Dornitz is much nearer—only three miles away—and he could have got them from the local Nazi headquarters there.”

“They came in a motor-truck,” added Freddie. “I saw it by
the flash of the shot-gun. It's parked down the road about forty yards away.”

As he spoke bullets began to thud into the wood of the cottage door. One of the Nazis was spraying it with a sub-machine-gun which kicked up a hellish clatter. Gregory and von Lutz jumped back towards the fireplace while Freddie sprang in the other direction.