The Fourth Estate (24 page)

Schultz was
about five foot three, with sullen gray eyes and short-cropped hair. He was
dressed in a pre-war threepiece suit that must have been made for him when he
was a stone heavier. His shirt was frayed at the collar and cuffs, and he wore
a thin, shiny black tie.

Armstrong smiled
down at him. “You and I have something in common,” he said.

Schultz shuffled
nervously from foot to foot in the presence of this towering British officer.
“And what is that?”

“We’re both
Jewish,” said Armstrong.

1 would never
have known,” said Schultz, sounding genuinely surprised.

Armstrong
couldn’t hide a smile of satisfaction. “Let me make it clear from the outset,”
he said, “that I intend to give you every assistance to ensure that
Der Telegraf
is kept on the streets. I
only have one long-term aim: to outsell Der Berliner.”

Schultz looked
doubtful. “They currently sell twice as many copies a day as we do. That was
true even before the war. They have far better presses, more staff, and the
advantage of being in the American sector. I don’t think it’s a realistic aim,
Captaim”

“Then we’ll 3ust
have to change all that, won’t we?” said Armstrong. “From now on you must look
upon me as the proprietor of the newspaper, and I will leave you to get on with
the editor’s job. Why don’t you start by telling me what your problems are?”

“Where do I
begin)” said Schultz, looking up at his new boss. “Our printing presses are out
of date. Many of the parts are worn out, and there seems to be no way of
getting replacements for them.”

“Make a list of
everything you need, and I’ll see that you get replacements.”

Schultz looked
unconvinced. He began cleaning his pebble glasses with a handkerchief he
removed from his top pocket. “And then there’s a continual problem with the
electricity. No sooner do I get the machinery to work than the supply is cut
off, so at least twice a week we end up with no papers being printed at all.”

“I’ll make sure
that doesn’t happen again,” promised Armstrong, without any idea of how he
would go about it. “What else?”

“Security,” said
Schultz. “The censor always checks every word of my copy, so the stories are
inevitably two or three days out of date when they appear, and after he has put
his blue pencil through the most interesting paragraphs there isn’t much left
worth reading.”

“Right,” said
Armstrong. “From now on I’ll vet the stories. I’ll also have a word with the
censor, so you won’t have any more of those problems in the future. Is that
everything?”

“No, Captain. My
biggest problem comes when the electricity stays on all week.”

“I don’t
understand,” said Armstrong. “How can that be a problem?”

“Because then I
always run out of paper.”

“What’s your
current print run?”

“One hundred, one
hundred and twenty thousand copies a day at best.”

“And Der
Berliner?’

“Somewhere
around a quarter of a million copies.” Schultz paused. “Every day.”

“I’ll make sure
you’re supplied with enough paper to print a quarter of a million copies every
day. Give me to the end of the month.”

Schultz,
normally a courteous man, didn’t even say thank you when Captain Armstrong left
to return to his office. Despite the British officees self-confidence, he
simply didn’t believe it was possible.

Once he was back
behind his desk, Armstrong asked Sally to type up a list of all the items
Schultz had requested. When she had completed the task he checked the list,
then asked her to make a dozen copies and to organize a meeting of the full
team. An hour later they all squeezed into his office.

Sally handed a
copy of the list to each of them. Armstrong ran briefly through each item and
ended by saying, “I want everything that’s on this list, and I want it pronto.
When there’s a tick against every single item, you will all get three days’
leave. Until then you work every waking hour, including weekends. Do I make
myself clear?”

A few of them
nodded, but no one spoke.

Nine days later
Charlotte arrived in Berlin, and Armstrong sent Benson to the station to pick
her up.

“Where’s my husband?”
she asked as her bags were put into the back of the jeep.

“He had an
important meeting that he couldn’t get out of, Mrs. Armstrong.

He says he’ll
join you later this evening.”

When Dick
returned to the flat that night, he found that Charlotte had finished unpacking
and had prepared dinner for him. As he walked through the door she threw her
arms around him.

“It’s wonderful
to have you in Berlin, darling,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be at the
station to meet you.” He released her and looked into her eyes. “I’m doing the
work of six men. I hope you understand.”

“Of course I
do,” said Charlotte. “I want to hear all about your new job over dinner.”

Dick hardly
stopped talking from the moment he sat down until they left the unwashed dishes
on the table and went to bed. For the first time since he had arrived in Berlin
he was late into the office the following morning.

It took Captain
Armstrong’s barrow boys nineteen days to locate every item on the list, and
Dick another eight to reuisition them, using a powerful mix of charm, bullying
and bribery. When an unopened crate of six new Remington typewriters appeared
in the office with no requisition order, he simply told Lieutenant Wakeham to
turn a blind eye.

If ever
Armstrong came up against an obstacle he simply mentioned the words “Colonel
Oakshott” and “Control Commission.” This nearly always resulted in the
reluctant official involved signing in triplicate for whatever was needed.

When it came to
the electricity supply, Peter Wakeham reported that because of overloading, one
of the four sectors in the city had to be taken off the grid for at least three
hours in every twelve. The grid, he added, was officially under the command of
an American captain called Max Sackville, who said he hadn’t the time to see
him.

“Leave him to
me,” said Armstrong.

But Dick quickly
found out that Sackville was unmoved by charm, bullying or bribery, partly
because the Americans seemed to have a surplus of everything and always assumed
the ultimate authority was theirs. What he did discover was that the captain
had a weakness, which he indulged every Saturday evening. It took several hours
of listening to how Sackville won his purple heart at Anzio before Dick was
invited to join his poker school.

For the next
three weeks Dick made sure he lost around $_50 every Saturday night which,
under several different headings, he claimed back as expenses the following
Monday morning. That way he ensured that the electricity suppi y in the British
sector was never cut off between the hours of three and midnight, except on
Saturdays, when no copies of
Der Telegraf
were being printed.

Arno Schultzs
list of requests was completed in twentysix days, by which time
Der Telegraf
was producing 140,000
copies a night. Lieutenant Wakeham had been put in charge of distribution, and
the paper never failed to be on the streets by the early hours of the morning.
When he was informed by Dick of
Der
Telegraf
s latest circulation figures, Colonel Oakshott was delighted with
the results his prot6g6 was achieving, and agreed that the team should be
granted three days’ leave.

No one was more
delighted by this news than Charlotte. Since she had arrived in Berlin, Dick
had rarely been home before midnight, and often left the house before she woke.
But that Friday afternoon he turned up outside their apartment behind the wheel
of someone else’s Mercedes, and once she had loaded LIP the car with battered
cases, they set off for Lyon to spend a long weekend with her family.

It worried
Charlotte that Dick seemed quite incapable of relaxing for more than a few
minutes at a time, but she was grateful that there wasn’t a phone in the little
house in Lyon. On the Saturday evening the whole family went to see David Niven
in The Pe~ectXfarriage. The next morning Dick started growing a moustache.

The moment
Captain Armstrong returned to Berlin, he took the colonel’s advice and began
building up useful contacts in each sector of the city-a task which was made
easier when people learned he was in control of a newspaper which was read by a
million people every day (his figures).

Almost all the
Germans he came across assumed, by the way he conducted himself, that he had to
be a generali everyone else was left in no doubt that even if he wasn’t, he had
the backing of the top brass. He made sure certain staff officers were
mentioned regularly in
Der Telegraf
,
and after that they rarely queried his requests, however outrageous. He also
took advantage of the endless source of publicity provided by the paper to
promote himself, and as he was able to write his own copy, he quickly became a
celebrity in a city of anonymous uniforms.

Three months
after Armstrong met Arno Schultz for the first time,
Der Telegraf
was regularly coming out six days a week, and he was
able to report to Colonel Oakshott that the circulation had passed 200,000
copies, and that at this rate it would not be long before they overtook Der
Berliner. The colonel simply said, “You’re doing a first class job, Dick.”

He wasn’t quite
sure what Armstrong was actually doing, but he had noticed that the young
captain’s expenses had crept up to over C20 a week.

Although Dick
reported the colonel’s praise to Charlotte, she could sense that he was already
becoming bored with the job.
Der Telegraf
was
selling almost as many copies as Der Berliner, and the senior officers in the
three Western sectors were always happy to welcome Captain Armstrong to their
messes. After all, you only had to whisper a story in his ear, and it would
appear in print the following day. As a result, he always had a surplus of
Cuban cigars, Charlotte and Sally were never short of nylons, Peter Wakeham
could indulge in his favorite tipple of Gordon’s gin, and the barrow boys had
enough vodka and cigarettes to run a black market on the side.

But Dick was
frustrated by the fact that he didn’t seem to be making any progress with his
own career. Although promotion had been hinted at often enough, nothing seemed
to happen in a city that was already far too full of majors and colonels, most
of whom were simply sitting around on their backsides waiting to be sent home.

Dick began
discussing with Charlotte the possibility of returning to England, especially
since Britain’s newlyelected Labor Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had asked
soldiers to come home as soon as possible because there was a surplus of jobs
waiting for them. Despite their comfortable lifestyle in Berlin Charlotte
seemed delighted by the idea, and encouraged Dick to think about requesting an
early discharge. The next day he asked to see the colonel.

“Are you sure
that’s what you really want to do?” said Oakshott.

“Yes, sir,”
replied Dick. “Now that everything’s working smoothly, Schultz is quite capable
of running the paper without me.”

“Fair enough.
I’ll try and speed the process up.”

A few hours
later Armstrong heard the name of Klaus Lauber for the first time, and slowed
the process down.

When Armstrong
visited the print works later that morning, Schultz informed him that for the
first time they had sold more copies than Der Berlhier, and that he felt
perhaps they should start thinking about bringing out a Sunday paper.

“I can’t see any
reason why you shouldn’t,” said Dick, sounding a little bored.

“I only wish we
could charge the same price as we did before the war,”

Schultz sighed.
“With these sales figures we would be making a handsome profit. I know it must
be hard for you to believe, Captain Armstrong, but in those days I was
considered a prosperous and successful man.”

“Perhaps you
will be again,” said Armstrong. “And sooner than you think,” he added, looking
out of the grimy window on to a pavement crowded with weary-looking people. He
was about to tell Schultz that he intended to hand the whole operation over to
him and return to England, when the German said, “I’m not sure that will be
possible any longer.”

“Why not?” asked
Armstrong. ‘The paper belongs to you, and everybody knows that the restrictions
on shareholding for German citizens are about to be lifted.”

‘That may well
be the case, Captain Armstrong, but unfortunately I no longer own any shares in
the company.”

Armstrong
paused, and began to choose his words carefully. “Really? What made you sell
them?” he asked, still looking out of the window.

“I didn’t sell
them,” said Schultz. “I virtually gave them away.

“I’m not sure I
understand,” said Armstrong, turning to face him.

“It’s quite
simple, really,” said Schultz. “Soon after Hitler came to power, he passed a
law which disqualified Jews from owning newspapers. I was forced to dispose of
my shares to a third party.”