‘But—’
‘And this is the remains of 346th Infantry. Tasked with taking it back.’
The young officer turned. ‘Hello, Major. Any word?’
‘Not yet.’ He glanced at Theo. ‘Lieutenant Schäfer, this is Captain Ladurner, newly assigned to our intelligence staff. He’s… fact-finding.’
‘Facts?’ Schäfer forced a tired smile. ‘The fact is, we’re due to attack again at dusk. Unless the order changes.’
Theo looked around. Two mortar sections were set up just inside the trees; further along he glimpsed scattered handfuls of riflemen making ready. But that was all. ‘Attack with what?’
‘That is the question.’ Schäfer shrugged. His face was exhausted, the bandage on his arm soiled and bloody, his tunic mud-caked and his boots split and sodden. Like the last man standing. ‘We were a battalion a week ago, now we’re barely a company. Our officers are dead, or injured, or transferred to other units. We’re promised reinforcements every day – an armoured column is coming, they say, with field guns, Panther tanks and two companies of infantry…’
‘They’re not coming! Your reinforcements, they’re all dead. In any case, what they’re sending isn’t enough, not nearly enough, believe me!’
‘I know that, but the orders—’
‘Damn the orders! That’s open ground out there, you’ll be cut to pieces.’
‘Captain Ladurner,’ Brandt interrupted. ‘The lieutenant is well aware of the difficulties. As are his men.’
Theo glanced around. Several of the troops nearby were now listening, wide-eyed with concern. Many of them, he saw, were little more than boys.
‘Can’t we do anything?’ he whispered. ‘We can’t just let them go.’
‘The ceasefire negotiations. We’ve been waiting, and hoping, but time…’
‘Anything?’
‘Perhaps you can.’ Brandt held his stare, then nodded. ‘Captain Ladurner. I have a question.’
‘What question?’
‘As the ranking intelligence officer here, is it your considered assessment, in view of the absence of a senior field officer, that Lieutenant Schäfer should await clarification of the reinforcements situation, and up-to-date instructions from his divisional commander, before proceeding with his planned attack on Troarn?’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’ Brandt’s gaze was steady. ‘Is it?’
‘Well…’ The penny dropped. ‘Well, yes. Absolutely. He should definitely wait.’
And with that Theo had issued his first operational order.
*
He spent the second day frustratingly cooped up in the chateau at La Roche-Guyon. Brandt was away trying to organize hospital trains, Rommel’s arrival was promised but repeatedly delayed, and no special arrangements had been made for Theo: no outings, no briefings and no meetings. As an ‘observer’ he was redundant – and ignored. Staff hurried by with courteous urgency, but paid him no heed, and if he stopped to question them he was politely brushed off. Furthermore, guards ensured he was kept away from sensitive areas like the signals room; nor, he soon learned, was he allowed off chateau premises.
‘You are our guest, Captain,’ his orderly chided when he was caught near the gates. ‘And as such you must remain here.’
‘I was just going for a walk.’
‘Once outside these grounds you are beyond our protection.’
‘I’ll take the risk.’
‘Think about it,’ the man went on more sternly. Theo was beginning to view him more as a gaoler than a servant. ‘You are a British officer masquerading as a German one. That alone is a serious contravention of the rules of war. The identity discs around your neck are British, you have no German papers, discs or identity card, and you belong to no German regiment or unit. Nor are you wearing a weapon, which is against regulations. Your accent may fool the unwary but the most casual of inspections would expose you in seconds. If that happens, nothing can help you.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘It is a condition of the agreement that no harm comes to you. We will take whatever precautions necessary to ensure that.’
Duly chastened, he returned to the house. Later he was informed that Rommel’s chief of staff General Speidel was holding an afternoon situation briefing in the ballroom, and to his surprise he was welcome to attend. Arriving there he found the room full of staff officers, clerks and aides of all ranks and disciplines, much as at Dempsey’s chateau in Blay, and spotting an empty chair at the back sat down to wait.
Speidel arrived with a small entourage, strode through the room and stepped on to a platform with blackboards and a mounted map of Normandy. A diffident middle-aged man with wire-rimmed spectacles and thinning hair, he more resembled an academic or accountant than a military chief. In modest tones, he began by outlining the strategic situation in Normandy, pointing out the disposition of German forces along the front with the Allies, which appeared on the map as a black line meandering from the Cotentin coast in the west to Le Havre in the east. All along the line were the names of the dozen or so units defending it, with ominous bulges here and there where the Allies were driving forward. He saw ‘21 Pz’ at Colombelles, which he knew was holding well, whereas ‘346 Inf’ next door on the Dives was close to collapse. Interestingly, on the opposite side of the line were marked the various Allied units opposing them, including his own ‘6 Fall Div’ which was still centred on Ranville. He wondered briefly about Gale, Howard, Pearson and the rest – chafing at the bit to break out, no doubt.
Having spoken of the local situation which he summed up as ‘challenging but contained’, Speidel widened his briefing, reporting that Army Group G under General Blaskowitz down in Provence was at full preparedness against the expected second invasion of France, Army Group C under Kesselring was holding the Allied advance up Italy at the Gothic Line, and finally Army Group Centre was manfully repelling Operation Bagration, the latest and to date largest Russian offensive against Germany. What he failed to mention was that Army Group G was in reality only half a group, the Gothic Line was Kesselring’s last and most northerly line of retreat before the Alps, and Operation Bagration was storming westwards across Poland at a terrifying rate, with leading Russian units barely four hundred miles from the German border. Nor was any mention made of the dire shortages, crippling casualties, lack of replacements, absent air cover, or the divided and crumbling leadership. Instead Theo formed the impression of a situation that was tense and concerning, but basically under control.
Until the very end. Concluding his report, Speidel seemed to pause in mid flow and look around the room, studying the faces anew, before resuming in a quieter and more resigned tone.
‘Gentlemen, as you know, the Generalfeldmarschall is hard at work visiting every unit in the Group. He apologizes for this absence but knows you will understand, for his efforts are of the utmost importance. A bold new initiative is at hand that could transform the situation for us, put an early and acceptable end to this campaign, and alter the outcome of the war in Germany’s favour. Time is critical and discretion essential: there is much to put in place in a very short time, therefore he begs your continued patience and support.’ Theo felt Speidel’s gaze fall directly on him. ‘And let us pray he is successful in his endeavours. Before it is too late.’
*
The orderly shook him awake well after midnight. ‘Get dressed.’
‘What?’
‘Hurry, the field marshal’s waiting.’
Struggling blearily into his clothes, he barely noticed that as well as uniform, cap and boots, the orderly was fastening a pistol belt around his waist.
‘I don’t need this.’
‘Yes you do, you’re going on a trip.’
‘But…’
‘It’s empty, of course.’
Down in the moonlit driveway the car was waiting, a black Horch convertible with the roof up. A driver sat in front next to a guard hefting a Schmeisser; behind them both, lit by
a map light and reading from a file, sat Erwin Rommel.
‘Junge,’ he grunted.
‘Sir.’
‘Apologies for waking you at this hour.’
‘May I ask where we’re going?’
‘Paris.’ Rommel leaned towards the driver. ‘Let’s go, Daniel, and we’d best be quick, the old man says it’s urgent.’
Churning gravel, the car sped into motion; moments later it exited the gates and accelerated on to tarmac. Wide awake suddenly, Theo turned to Rommel. ‘Whereabouts…’
‘Not yet.’ Rommel’s eyes scanned the file. ‘Let me finish.’
Theo sat back. Paris. Avenue Foch. Where was that? Could he get there, could he get in? Then what? A fortress prison and an empty gun? The questions rang in his head like bells. Outside the roads became wider, swiftly carrying them eastward towards a grey horizon. The Horch was warm and comfortable, the motion soporific; watching the nightscape he became aware of pressure on his shoulder and turned to see that Rommel, leaning sideways, had fallen asleep.
‘Leave him,’ the driver murmured. ‘It’s his third night without rest.’
In a while suburbs began to appear, then the car sped through a darkened forest, emerging on to a bridge over the Seine followed immediately by a second at Chatou. Suddenly they were entering Paris proper, bumping on to cobbled boulevards lined with trees and tall buildings. The hour was still early, the dawn dark, no lights showed and few people were in evidence. He searched for signposts but learned little of his whereabouts. Then Rommel awoke, blinking groggily.
‘How long, Daniel?’
‘About ten minutes, sir.’
‘Good.’ He passed a hand over his face, and Theo saw the lines etched in his cheek. ‘So, Junge.’ He yawned. ‘These are curious times, no?’
‘Very, sir, yes.’
‘Yet momentous.’ Rommel angled the map light at him. ‘You’ve aged since last we met. But then so have we both. I trust you are in better health than then.’
Salo. The house above Lake Garda. After the Gestapo. ‘I am, sir, thank you.’
‘And spirits?’
‘I am much recovered.’
‘I rather assumed that when you gave my men the slip in Verona.’
Although they’d left him alone, car door unlocked, virtually inviting him to go.
‘Now then, you’ll be wanting an update on the bridge-construction project.’
‘The bridge… Yes, I would.’
The car crossed the Seine a third time at Pont de Neuilly, and entered another wide tree-lined avenue at the very end of which, squat and shadowy in the gloom, stood the Arc de Triomphe.
‘You’re about to find out,’ Rommel said. ‘And I believe it will be significant.’
It was, but not in the way he expected.
The car pulled up outside the famous George V hotel, one whole floor of which had been taken over by Gerd von Rundstedt as his personal apartment and headquarters. Clanking up in the lift, they were greeted by a grim-faced adjutant and shown straight into an ornate salon furnished in Louis XVI style. Rundstedt, grey-haired, approaching seventy, in shirtsleeves and braces behind a marble-topped desk, rose as soon as he saw them.
‘He’s sacked me, Erwin!’
Rommel gaped. ‘What?’
‘I’m to be sacked, for defeatism and lack of moral fibre! Here’s the signal.’
Rommel scanned the sheet. ‘But… that’s impossible! When?’
‘The next few days. It’s all dressed up as retirement with full military honours and so on, but privately he’s saying I’m no longer up to the job and must be replaced!’
‘By who?’
‘That fanatic Kluge!’
The facts emerged. Following their disastrous meeting with Hitler at Margival on 17 June, Rommel and Rundstedt had tried one final time to make their leader see sense, travelling to Berchtesgaden together to attend a conference on the French situation. During the conference Rommel tried twice to turn the conversation away from tactical matters and into a discussion about Germany’s survival. The first time he was firmly rebuked by Hitler, the second he was ordered furiously from the room. Driving back to Normandy, both men agreed the Führer had lost all reason and intended nothing less than the total annihilation of Germany and its people, and that therefore they must take matters into their own hands by enacting Fall Grün immediately. Although Rundstedt was soon wavering, he agreed Rommel should press ahead with the first steps, which were to sound out their unit commanders for support, and establish contact with the Allies via an intermediary.
‘Is this him?’ Rundstedt gestured at Theo. ‘The British liaison officer?’
‘It is.’
‘Well, he must leave the room! Immediately! We have much to discuss that the Allies mustn’t know.’
‘But he’s—’
‘No, I insist!’
Rommel saw him to the lobby. ‘Wait here. He’s just panicking.’
‘What of the bridge project? Can it still go ahead?’
‘If we hurry. We have a few days before Kluge takes over. But I know him, he’s a pragmatist, and he’d come round to our thinking once he saw the situation for himself.’
‘There isn’t time. The Allied offensive…’
‘I am aware of that! So we push ahead with or without Kluge. That means tackling Blaskowitz at Army Group G, then all the field commanders here in Normandy. Stay here, I’ll call you back in when I can.’
He sank into a plush velvet armchair, but the moment Rundstedt’s door closed he rose and went in search of the adjutant. ‘The Generalfeldmarschall wants me to buy a few things.’
‘You’ll need a pass.’ The adjutant produced a chit. ‘And be careful walking about on your own, Parisians are jumpy as hell since the invasion.’
‘Thanks. And how far’s Avenue Foch?’
‘What do you want there?’
‘Nothing. Just sightseeing.’
‘Ten minutes. Go back to the Arc and turn left, you can’t miss it.’
He found the avenue swiftly enough, but soon saw that it was huge, nearly a mile in length and featuring a wide central carriageway flanked by two smaller avenues of imposingly tall buildings set back behind trees. With no idea of the house number, finding the right one would take hours, so he was reduced to asking directions.
‘Which way is the police headquarters?’ The hour was still early, with few people on the streets. He tried an old man walking his dog, but he merely scowled, while a cleaning woman swabbing steps looked at his uniform and spat on the pavement. With time growing short, and conscious that hostile eyes were watching him, he eventually approached two cruising Feldgendarmerie military policemen.
‘Papiere, bitte, Hauptmann!’ they immediately demanded, snapping their fingers.
Heart thumping, he handed over his only document, the chit signed by the adjutant on Rundstedt’s paper.
‘You are from the Field Marshal’s office?’
‘Yes. On an errand for him to SD headquarters.’
‘On your own? That’s not clever.’
‘Sorry, it’s a rush job.’
‘Number eighty-four. Far end, right-hand side.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Nobody’s there, mind you.’
‘What?’
‘Skeleton staff only. All packed up and headed back to Berlin.’
‘What about the prisoners?’
‘Fuck knows.’
He hurried to the building, a six-storey, stone-fronted block with tall windows and wrought-iron balconies. Hovering uncertainly by the entrance, he saw the driveway and garden was littered with boxes, crates and furniture. Eventually he spied a clerk staggering down the steps beneath a steel desk.
‘Wait, let me help you with that.’
‘Eh? Well, yes, OK, Captain, thanks. Just put it down there with the rest.’
‘Going home?’
‘Too right, thank Christ. France is finished.’
‘Indeed.’ He looked up at the buil
ding. ‘So this is the place. Where they bring all the spies and insurgents and so on.’
‘Next door actually. They had special connecting doors and tunnels built. To hide all the comings and goings.’
‘Really? Where did they house them?’
‘In the basement mostly. And see the barred windows on the third floor? Special cells muffled for sound. That’s where all the questioning went on, if you know what I mean!’
A boy strapped to a chair. Blood-chilling screams as his fingernails tore out.
‘I believe I do. Did you see much of that?’
‘Me? Christ no, far too squeamish. But it went on round the clock – everyone knew. Horrific stuff too.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But all gone now. The prisoners, I mean.’
‘Yes, sir, shipped home a week ago.’
‘Where to?’
‘The camps, I expect.’
‘Camps?’
‘Christ, Captain, where’ve you been!’
‘Abroad. Italy mostly. Haven’t been home in ages.’
‘Well, there’s camps. Konzentrationslager, where they dump all the undesirables. There’s dozens: Natzweiler, Ravensbrück, Dachau…’
‘What happens to them there?’
‘The spies and so on? Tortured, tried and shot’s my guess.’ He turned for the steps. ‘And good bloody riddance!’
*
The next forty-eight hours passed in a blur of rising tension and hyperactivity. Back at Rundstedt’s HQ the waiting went on until mid-afternoon when Theo was suddenly summoned to the salon. There he learned that matters were proceeding, slowly, but that General Blaskowitz was insisting on a face-to-face meeting before agreeing to stand down Army Group G. Reluctant to let the erratic Rundstedt handle this, Rommel had no choice but to meet Blaskowitz himself. This meant a long drive south to a rendezvous in Burgundy, with Theo accompanying him to witness the exchange. In the meantime, most but not all of Rommel’s field commanders had confirmed support; the rest would also need personal persuasion. Rundstedt’s replacement Kluge had not yet surfaced, but might at any time, throwing the whole plan into question, while intelligence reports indicated Allied forces were amassing at key locations along the Normandy front, and Rommel feared they might be preparing to launch a pre-emptive attack before the deadline.
The Bridge Page 17
