‘So is life good, Wilhelm? Is the Abwehr keeping you busy?’
‘The Abwehr is up its own arse. One day someone will come along and put it out of its misery. If you were a betting man you’d pile your money on that little bastard Schellenberg. The trick he pulled at Venlo was crude as fuck but it did the trick. Do you want the pair of them back, by the way? I might be able to sort something out.’
The two men looked at each other for a long moment and then Moncrieff began to laugh. Time obviously meant nothing to Schultz. Three years ago they’d worked together in Berlin and Nuremberg while the world held its breath over the Czech crisis, Moncrieff the callow novice, Schultz the one-time SA brawler with a new perch in the Abwehr and powerful allies in the German military. Moncrieff, with his Royal Marine background and his language skills, was in Berlin to make contact with the opposition to Hitler and Schultz had the ear of the people who mattered. In the end the operation foundered, neither man’s fault, but the respect and the beginnings of a friendship were still there. Moncrieff found himself smiling again. September 1938 might have been yesterday.
Schultz was digging in a pocket of his leather jacket. At length he produced a small cigar. The barman supplied a light.
‘Dahlerus tells me you’re at St James’s Street. True?’
Moncrieff nodded. The former MGM building in St James’s Street was part of MI5’s London estate. He had a desk in a small office on the third floor.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I joined the day after war was declared.’
‘Your idea?’
‘Theirs. I’d have been very happy back in the Corps but everyone told me I was too old. So it was either Five or something noble in Civil Defence. I could never wear a blue uniform so it had to be the Security Service.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘You like it?’
Moncrieff hesitated, wondering quite where this conversation was heading.
‘Is this between friends?’ he asked.
‘It is.’
‘Then the truth is that I love it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it stretches me. And because I’m good at it. Back in the old days, up in Scotland, my dad had a couple of dogs. One of them was old. Her days in the field were over. But the other one was much younger, almost a puppy. She’d be out in the hills most days, chasing a neighbour’s sheep, and it was my job to get her back. I used to try every trick in the book to get inside that little dog’s tiny head. Work out what appeals. Lure her. Trick her. Tempt her. Bend her to your will. In truth nothing’s really changed. Except the weather’s better down south.’
‘And you’re dealing with people.’
‘I am.’
‘Our people.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Counter-espionage. Emptying a man of everything he knows.’
‘Lovely idea.’
‘So tell me,’ Schultz’s face was very close. ‘Are any of them as stupid as the puppies Schellenberg took at Venlo?’
Moncrieff ducked his head. Venlo was a Dutch town on the German border. A couple of months into the war, two MI6 agents were kidnapped by Walter Schellenberg, whom they believed to be heading a plot involving senior Wehrmacht officers to kill Hitler. In real life, Schellenberg was a rising star in Himmler’s intelligence organisation, the plot was a carefully baited trap, and the damage the Sicherheitsdienst inflicted on MI6 networks across Europe was substantial.
‘You could really get them back?’ Moncrieff reached for his drink. ‘If we asked nicely?’
‘No.’ Schultz caught the barman’s eye and nodded at a door towards the back. ‘But would you really want them?’
*
They ate in a smallish room upstairs clad entirely in wood. When Moncrieff asked Schultz whether this might once have been a sauna, he said it was more than possible. The building was old. The harbour was a sprint away. Half an hour in the oven and then a plunge into this corner of the icy Baltic? Difficult to refuse.
There was no menu. A buxom woman in her fifties who’d clearly taken to Schultz offered a list of dishes in Swedish. Schultz didn’t bother to consult Moncrieff on any kind of choice and sent the woman on her way with their order.
‘Let me guess…’ Moncrieff was emptying the glass he’d brought up from downstairs. ‘Fish?’
Schultz ignored the question. First they had to attend to business. He’d invited Moncrieff over to point out what seemed, at least to most Germans, the obvious.
‘It’s over,’ he grunted. ‘It’s finished. It’s a numbers game. Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland.’ He tallied the countries that had fallen to Hitler’s armies on the fingers of both hands and then looked up. ‘Only the British have forgotten how to count.’
‘You missed out the Czechs, my friend. Easily done.’
‘Ja, them too. Do I hear a yes? Are we right to consider the war won?’
Moncrieff didn’t answer. Instead he wanted to know about Sylt. He’d looked it up on the map. A tiny Friesian island off the German–Danish border.
‘You don’t know what happened?’
‘That’s why I’m asking.’
Schultz nodded. Moncrieff’s question seemed to surprise him.
‘We organised a meeting there,’ Schultz said carefully, ‘a couple of weeks before the war began. If you really want to know what happens next in life you ask a priest or a businessman. They both have a stake in the future but on this occasion we stuck with the businessman.’
‘We?’
‘Goering was in charge. He wanted somewhere quiet, somewhere offshore, somewhere no one would notice us. He wanted to talk to the British face to face. He wanted to look them in the eye, explain the facts of life. The whole thing was his idea.’
‘And you were there?’
‘Yes. The Fat One’s thick with Canaris. I was the Admiral’s man at the table.’ Admiral Canaris was head of the Abwehr, an inscrutable old-school warrior who’d never bothered to hide his doubts about Hitler.
‘And?’
‘Goering was pushing for a treaty to keep Britain out of a war that everyone knew was a couple of weeks away. The British brought a selection of businessmen and a couple of aristocrats who all agreed it made perfect sense. Fighting each other would be crazy. Goering thought another four-power conference might do the trick. Get the French and Italians on board and we could have the whole thing tied up in no time at all.’
‘Like Munich?’
‘Exactly. Except you’d be shitting on the Poles this time, not the Czechs. It never happened, of course, but that really wasn’t the point. The Fat One made a big impression. This was someone you British could do business with when the time was right. Your phrase, not ours. I remember writing it down.’
Moncrieff nodded. When the time was right. At Nuremberg, three years ago, he’d shared a bottle of Spanish brandy with Goering at a late-night meeting brokered by Schultz. Moncrieff had brought word from London that the British would march if Hitler moved into the Sudetenland. He’d known from the start that Goering didn’t believe him, but they’d drunk deep into the small hours and laughed a great deal in one of those precious moments of implausible bonhomie stolen from a mind-numbing week of interminable military parades in the gigantic bowl of the Zeppelinfeld. Moncrieff hadn’t known what to expect but the father of the Luftwaffe had fully measured up to his advance billing. A man of gargantuan appetites and ready wit. A raconteur of the first order. A man you might do business with. Perfect.
‘So is this Goering’s idea, too?’ Moncrieff gestured at the space between them.
‘He knows we’re here, certainly.’
‘But he thinks the war’s over? As good as won?’
‘Yes. And not just him. We all do.’
There was a knock on the door. The woman was back with a tray of food. Moncrieff watched her serving Schultz first, bending quickly to whisper something in his ear. Schultz, eyeing the platter of soused herring, sh
ot her a look, then nodded. Seconds later, she’d gone.
For several minutes they ate in silence. Schultz was right about the herrings. They were delicious. At length, Schultz reached for a napkin and wiped his mouth.
‘Hitler, I’m afraid, doesn’t understand the British. He thinks you’re all Nazis with better manners. In his view you should be making the most of your empire and getting very rich. Europe’s always been nothing but trouble as far as you British are concerned. Now he’s taken care of that, we might all make a new start.’
‘By bombing us every night?’
‘By getting rid of Churchill and having a sensible conversation. That man’s something else he doesn’t understand. You’re alone. Your army’s fucked. You don’t know what to do about our U-boats. There’s nothing left to eat. And you’re right, every night we help ourselves to another city. How many bombs do we have to drop before you people come to your senses?’
‘This is you talking? Or him?’
‘Both, my friend. Hitler is a tidy man. He likes things done a certain way. It starts with his domestic arrangements and it ends with most of Europe. Churchill upsets him. Just ask Hess. Rudolf is the only one Hitler really trusts. Churchill is a schoolboy, a lout. He loves to fight. He lives to fight. We all agree you’re better off without him. Hess thinks a conversation with the King might do the trick.’
Rudolf Hess served as Hitler’s Deputy. Moncrieff could pick him out in a photograph – bushy black eyebrows, piercing eyes – but knew very little else.
‘We owe Churchill a great deal,’ Moncrieff murmured. ‘I think you’ll find he’s very popular.’
‘Of course,’ Schultz stabbed at a flake of herring. ‘That goes for Hitler, too. As we both know.’
Moncrieff nodded. The operation he and Schultz had tried to mount three years earlier had come to nothing because Hitler knew how to ride his luck. First Austria and then Czechoslovakia had fallen into Berlin’s lap while the rest of the world looked the other way. How many Germans would argue with an ever greater Reich?
Moncrieff pushed his plate away. ‘If you’re asking me whether the British will get rid of Churchill then the answer’s no.’
‘Even at the cost of all those cities? All that shipping?’
‘Even then.’
‘So there’s nothing we can offer?’
‘I doubt it. Unless you’re talking withdrawal. Pack your bags and get out of France, out of Belgium, out of Scandinavia, and even Churchill might have second thoughts…’
Schultz nodded, said nothing. Moncrieff had the impression he might have planted a seed but wasn’t sure.
‘You want me to report this conversation back?’ he asked.
‘Of course. That’s why you’re here.’
‘The messenger again? Is that it?’
‘Yes. And tell your masters something else. That the bombing will continue until peace negotiations start. Our Leader’s pleasure, Tam. Neatness is all.’
The waitress had left a couple of glasses and a bottle of white wine on the table. Schultz poured. Moncrieff proposed the toast.
‘I hear the Russians are in town tonight,’ he said.
‘You mean Molotov?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s true. He’s thrown a dinner for Goering and that fool Ribbentrop. Should we be expecting a visit?’
‘Fifty-plus bombers,’ Moncrieff checked his watch and then raised his glass. ‘About now.’
*
Two Wehrmacht soldiers who happened to be on leave were first to the wreckage of Beata’s Volkswagen. The little car had telescoped into the back of one of Berlin’s big trolley buses, destroying the bonnet. A body hung over the wreckage, thrown through the windscreen by the impact. There was glass everywhere and blood dripped onto the torn metal from a deep gash on the driver’s forehead. Other lacerations had webbed his face with more blood.
Another figure emerged from the darkness, a local man in the uniform of a Blockwarten.
‘You need to get out of here,’ he gestured skywards. ‘There’s a shelter at the next U-Bahn station.’
The soldiers ignored him. One of them was bent over the body protruding from the car. He was trying to find a pulse.
‘He’s alive. Just.’ He threw a look at his mate. ‘We have to get the poor bastard out.’
Between them, the two men smashed the rest of the windscreen and eased the driver out of the wreckage of the car before laying him carefully on the road. One of the soldiers picked the bigger fragments of glass from the driver’s jacket. Then the other removed his own greatcoat and draped it carefully over his chest and legs. By now he’d recognised the uniform.
‘Luftwaffe,’ he said. ‘A Major, a big shot.’ He looked up at the Blockwarten. ‘Find a telephone. The man’s dying. He needs a hospital.’
The Blockwarten started to protest. Regulations were black and white. Bombing raid. Take cover.
‘The man’s dying,’ the soldier repeated. ‘He doesn’t need a fucking shelter.’
It had begun to rain now and very faintly from the west came the growl of aero engines. The Blockwarten glanced up into the darkness, then looked at the figure under the greatcoat. There was a telephone in a ground-floor apartment nearby. He’d do his best.
For the next twenty minutes the soldiers crouched over the driver, whispering to the man, trying to keep him alive. From time to time there were faint signs of movement in one hand and, when the first bombs fell a kilometre or so away, and the ground shook with the impact, one eye flicked briefly open. By now, thanks to the man’s ID card, the soldiers had a name. One of them knelt beside his ear.
‘Herr Major… help’s coming… Herr Major… you’re going to be OK…’
The soldiers took it in turns, bending low, trying to make contact, trying to keep this dying stranger from slipping into oblivion. The bombs crept ever closer, the biggest explosion barely a block away, but they didn’t seem to care.
‘Georg…’ one of them said, ‘it’s nearly Christmas. Hang on there.’
The ambulance appeared from nowhere. Overhead, the night sky was laced with searchlight beams hunting for the enemy bombers. A uniformed nurse with a flashlight bent briefly to the body while two orderlies readied a stretcher. The soldiers helped lift the dead weight onto the stretcher and manhandled it into the back of the ambulance. Then came the whine of a bomb, the closest so far, and everyone ducked for cover. Moments later a huge explosion rocked the ambulance and the trolley bus, and the street was suddenly full of flying glass and other debris. The men lay still. Nobody was injured. At length, wiping the dust and the rain from their uniforms, they were back on their feet. On the night wind, the unmistakable smell of gas from a ruptured main.
One of the soldiers still had the driver’s ID. He handed it to the nurse.
‘Major Georg Messner,’ he said. ‘Next-of-kin details on the back.’
2
The following day, 15 November 1940, Major Dieter Merz was piloting a twin-engined Me-110 on a flight from Flensburg, on the Danish border, to Zwolle, within touching distance of Amsterdam. The fighter bomber had a glasshouse canopy with room for a crew of three, though on this occasion Merz was alone.
He’d taken off less than half an hour ago, climbing through the early morning mist after a snatched breakfast of hot cinnamon rolls and a welcome mug of strong – and genuine – coffee. For nearly a week he’d been the guest of honour at the Kriegsmarine college overlooking the grey fjord that led to the city’s busy heart. He’d delivered a series of lectures on ways in which the Luftwaffe planned to tighten operational support of the Reich’s Navy, and when word spread that – ja – this was the same Dieter Merz who’d starred in one of Goebbels’ pre-war propaganda films, the draughty classrooms had been standing-room only.
At the end of each talk, Dieter had always been careful to welcome questions. But instead of earnest enquiries about interservice command protocols, and the likely reach of the latest generation of maritime reconnaissanc
e aircraft, everyone wanted to know about the air shows. Was it true that the famous dog fights between Major Merz and his comrade Georg Messner had always been fixed in Merz’s favour? And when the Reich’s aerial pin-up had swooped low over the huge crowd on the final day of that last Nuremberg rally, were witnesses kidding when they swore they could count the rivets on the underside of the Bf-109’s wing?
In truth, Merz had been slightly embarrassed by the warmth of his welcome. The last six months had turned him into a warrior rather than a showman, and only once at the college – late last night, in convivial company – had he opened up about the realities of taking on the British. They flew well, he admitted, and often better than well. The Spitfire was a superb aircraft, more than capable of out-turning the 109. In one dogfight after another his squadron had battled to hold their own against the RAF, but exhausting months of close-quarters combat had left far too many of his precious pilots at the bottom of what the British called the English Channel.
Berlin, he pointed out, regarded the Luftwaffe as artillery with wings. They were obsessed by the bombing campaign. That’s where the money went, into high explosive, into Heinkels and Dorniers, which left pilots like Dieter Merz flying live bait as bomber escorts. No wonder, he said, that the English constantly jumped them and that their losses had been so high. No wonder that even Goebbels struggled to turn those pitiless summer months into anything resembling the expected victory. After the steamroller campaigns of May and June, with capital after European capital offering nothing but token resistance, Goering had counted on destroying the RAF. And he’d failed.
Last night, the frankness of this admission had raised an eyebrow or two among the younger officers in the mess but the older staff had simply nodded. Wars rarely conformed to the script of any politician. So far, Hitler’s run of victories had been little short of miraculous so it came as no surprise that the British had thrown a handful of sand in Goering’s eye. Who knows, maybe postponing an invasion might turn out to be a blessing in disguise? Maybe there were other countries more deserving of the Wehrmacht’s attentions, lower-hanging fruit on the battered old tree that had once been unoccupied Europe?
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