‘Please, Peter. I can’t just sit back and wait to die! That’s all there is left, no matter what anyone says.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘I’m scared, for God’s sake. At least for a while can’t we forget what’s waiting out there?’ She shook her body, urging him on.
He knew he had to. There was no choice; to reject Hitler’s mistress, to make an enemy of her, was certain disaster. She was crying now, tears of passion, of frustration, of growing anger at his indifference, tears of a lonely and frightened girl, who had never hurt anyone, whose only crime had been to fall in love with the wrong man and who was waiting to die as bravely as she could. He understood, sympathized, even cared. So he started, trying not to think, to feel, losing himself in the enormity of it all.
It was not to be. As they lay entwined, thoughts only on each other, their private world was shattered by the explosion of a thousand brilliant flashes from beyond the windows. Lightning seared through the night sky, followed by a devastating and unending blast of noise. They froze. Death was rattling at the window frames and their moment was gone.
The sexual tension drained from her as the fear forced its way in. ‘The Russians. Those are Russian rockets and artillery. The final bombardment has begun,’ she said quietly.
From around them came the pandemonium of falling shells as they erupted to pile new rubble on top of old, to seek out those corners of the city that had somehow survived and reduce them to ashes. They were back in the real world, the world of insanity and destruction which for a short time they had left.
‘It will all be over soon, Peter.’ Her voice was plain, matter-of-fact.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Tears were falling again but there was no sobbing, no self-pity, only release from the tension.
‘If only we’d had a little more time.’
Very slowly, tenderly, she pushed him away, until he lay beside her, face to face, while she stroked the hair gently back from his damp forehead. ‘We’ve had enough time, Peter. Enough to show me that at least I can die my own person, not simply …’ She hesitated, considering the word carefully. ‘An appendage. Not just an extension to his life. This, us, here – it wasn’t so much doing it as the act of deciding to do it. To break away a little, to make up my own mind for once, be sure I could be myself. So it’s done. I can return to him. My own woman. My own choice.’ She was trying to smile through the tears. ‘I’ve lived so much for him over all these years, I needed to know that I could face up to dying for him, too. Now I do know. Thanks to you.’
She had learned more than he had realized. She kissed him again, gratefully and with passion, not taut like the schoolgirl but openly, and lay back on the chaise-longue as more shells burst about them.
Hencke rolled away and onto the floor. ‘Eva, take this.’ He was down on his knees, scrabbling in the semi-darkness for his belt and holster. The Walther was in his hand. ‘Put this in your handbag. Just in case. It will get chaotic, very dangerous, neither I nor anyone else may be there when you need us most, to protect you.’
‘To help me die, you mean.’
‘Take it, just in case.’
She stretched up to brush his cheek, grateful for the concern, then she took the gun and placed it in her handbag.
He watched her dress in the flickering light of the bombardment, smoothing the rumpled cotton as best she could. He shivered as he felt a cold river of fear run over him, not from the shells raining down but from what he knew had been the touch of Fate. It had not been planned, he couldn’t possibly have foreseen this. He had gained a friend on the inside. And possibly, just possibly, through Eva Braun and her handbag, he had broken the iron ring of security around the Bunker.
A few minutes before midday Hencke received the command to report to Goebbels in the Bunker. As he strode through the Chancellery it was clear that the established routine of the building had suddenly changed. No longer was it built around the twice-a-day pattern of Allied bombing; the bombers had left for good, and in their place had come the incessant and insistent pounding of Russian artillery and fire-belching ‘Stalin organs’. The message of the barrage was unmistakable; there was no longer a time to sleep and a time to work in the Chancellery, only a time to die.
In the Vorbunker there seemed to be other ideas. Where before he had seen little but unrelieved grimness in the faces of its inhabitants, in its place had come a new tension, an excitement, a glow of hope in their eyes. Everywhere there were signs of preparation for departure. Packing cases were being nailed shut, suitcases locked, papers being sorted and discarded, crates being carried out. Instead of the maudlin atmosphere of the birthday celebrations there was purpose, energy, urgency, the noise of rushing feet echoing from the concrete walls.
‘The Fuehrer has given the order,’ Goebbels explained, eyes bright. ‘The breakout begins!’
He paused from issuing instructions for the safe transportation of various cases and turned to study Hencke. Less than an hour ago he had received the report of the officer detailed to follow Hencke and who had lost him in the maze of the abandoned Chancellery. Why had Hencke gone there? Out of curiosity? Souvenir hunting? Yet the report had said he seemed to know precisely where he was headed, not tarrying to look. And there appeared no doubt that he had deliberately lost his tail. What had he been doing during those lost hours of the night; yet what harm could he possibly do in the empty section of the Chancellery? Hencke was a puzzle, and Goebbels neither liked nor trusted puzzles. Particularly now.
Two of Goebbels’ children were playing at his feet, a little girl with a doll and a boy with straight blond hair who was bouncing a ball. It ran loose towards Hencke and he stooped to retrieve it.
‘To think they will be playing in fresh alpine air in two days’ time.’ Goebbels smiled as he took possession of the ball, looking directly at Hencke. He arched an eyebrow. ‘And the Fuehrer has instructed that you will join us.’
Hencke remained expressionless as he tried to figure out the import of what Goebbels was saying. The little girl started crying and the Reichsminister stooped to gather her in his arms; only when he had finished comforting her did he return his attention to Hencke. He took from his pocket a dog-eared petrol-station map of Berlin and its suburbs, smoothing out the creases on the table.
‘The Russians are rapidly encircling the city. Their advance troops are already in Koepenick and Spandau; in a few days there will be no way out. So we start. There’s an emergency airstrip in Kladow – here. We use small planes to ferry us out to the Rechlin airbase’ – he stabbed again with his fore-finger – ‘where they’ve assembled an entire fleet of Condors and Junkers 390s, enough to fly us to China if we wanted, more than enough to get several hundred of us to Berchtesgaden in a few hours. With luck they may be able to make two, even three trips. For everyone else it’s the autobahn routes to the south and west, for as long as they stay open.’ His carefully-manicured finger ran across the map, indicating the way. ‘So we leave tonight! Hencke, the fight back begins!’
‘Why are you telling me all this, Herr Reichsminister?’
Good question, thought Goebbels. Was it because Bormann had received fresh information from Karlsbad confirming that Hencke had studied at the university there, had no record of political agitation or other trouble, had kept his nose clean and graduated into a respectable teaching post in the small town of Asch? His story was checking out, but still Goebbels was not content. Something about the whole situation gave him the feeling of needles being stuck into the nape of his neck. And there was still no trace of Hencke in the records since 1938, since the annexation of the Sudetenland. Perhaps, as Bormann had suggested, it was because all the record-keeping systems had changed and the new records were kept separately. He was still checking, he was sure they would come through with the full story. But Goebbels remembered there had been trouble in Asch and other towns which had been ‘liberated’ by the Sudeten Freikorps, who had left a trail of blood and broken bones in their wake. It ma
de him uneasy.
Was it because he wanted to see how Hencke reacted to the news, to see if there were any clues in his response? If so, the Reichsminister was disappointed. Hencke’s eyes remained unmoved and impenetrable. Or perhaps it was because Goebbels, his faculties sensitized by his twisted frame and a lifetime of physical inferiority, knew that his own fate and the fates of all of them were inextricably linked with Hencke. Salvation or annihilation. Somehow Hencke would decide.
‘I tell you, Hencke, because you will soon hear about it anyway. I shall broadcast news of the break-out to the world as we leave tonight. In six hours. It will be too late then for the Allies to react and stop us. The whole of Germany will know that the fight is not yet over, that resistance must still continue. A new chapter in our history, Hencke, one which you have helped to write. Because I shall also announce that you are with us, by the Fuehrer’s side, showing the world that Germany still has the will to resist. And I want you to say a few words of encouragement, too. What do you think of that, eh?’
‘It goes far beyond my wildest dreams, Herr Reichsminister.’
‘You are of great importance to us, Hencke. Next to the Fuehrer you may be the most important symbol in the Reich.’
Hencke swallowed hard, scarcely able to believe what he heard.
‘Oh, yes. That is why I have to give you new instructions. These are dangerous times, crucial times for our survival. We can afford to take no unnecessary risks. So I am giving you an armed guard, Hencke, to ensure as best we can that nothing befalls you. They will be with you day and night. Doesn’t that make you feel better?’
Hencke felt a sharp edge of pain as the final window of opportunity slammed shut across his fingers.
Goebbels nodded to someone behind Hencke and immediately there was a crashing of boot leather as a guard snapped smartly to attention. ‘Sergeant Greim here will look after you. He’s one of our finest commandos, utterly trustworthy. You’ll like him, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t know how to express my thanks, Herr Reichsminister.’ As Hencke looked into Goebbels’ dark eyes there was a flicker of contact and understanding between them. Goebbels knew. Not for certain and not the details, and not enough to order any immediate action against him, but he knew. It was written all over his crooked smile. Hencke was trapped, and any time after the evening broadcast he would become dispensable. Goebbels could indulge his instincts and drop him down the nearest crevasse. He might not even make it to the Alps. That’s what Greim was there for.
‘You will excuse me, Hencke.’ Goebbels gave a condescending nod. ‘I have a radio broadcast to write. I shall see you in six hours.’
Regrets. He had regrets, plenty of them. To have come so far and to have got so close made the regrets which flooded in on him all the more difficult to bear. He knew he couldn’t make a good death of it, not now. He didn’t have to die, of course. He could slip the guard and lose himself in the ruins of Berlin, taking his chance with the rest. But as difficult as he found the prospect of dying with his regrets, it was nothing to the prospect of having to live with them. The memories of the school and its burning books and broken bodies came back. He had sworn revenge, it was the only way he had been able to live with those nightmares. Yet he had failed, and he knew the pain of the memories would suffocate and destroy whatever life was left to him. There was no way out.
Almost blindly he wandered back into the Chancellery, pursued by the dogged Greim. They didn’t’ talk – what was the point? The signs of growing chaos and collapse were everywhere, yet he could take no comfort from them. In a makeshift command post a general was conducting a furious argument with an engineer about the flooding of the subway tunnels. The Russians will use them to infiltrate right to the heart of Berlin, screamed the general. They are the only shelter for hundreds of thousands of Berliners who will drown if the tunnels are flooded, argued the stubborn engineer, and would not obey. The exasperated general stormed off in search of another engineer. The veneer of military discipline which had hung over the Chancellery in previous days was finally blowing away. The apple had been cut open, only to reveal a writhing mass of maggots.
He felt an overwhelming need to have something other than solid concrete above his head. Walking slowly down the steep steps leading from the Chancellery entrance, he saw makeshift barricades being erected out of tree trunks, wrecked vehicles, sandbags, anything which was heavy yet could still be moved. Waffen SS troops were being stationed at every point around the Chancellery as if a direct attack were expected at any moment. The troops were speaking not German but a mixture of foreign tongues – French, Norwegian, Latvian, even Russian. These were the foreign volunteers, skimmed from the occupied countries, renowned for their ferocity and total indifference to casualties. They had little to lose, since dying in battle offered a far better fate than any they could expect if returned as prisoners to their native countries. Hencke wondered if anyone else saw the irony, the heart of the most racially pure Reich in history being defended by foreign mercenaries.
Choking clouds of smoke and dust swirled through the streets around the Chancellery. In spite of continuous shelling and high risk of death there were lines of women with buckets drawing water from standpipes. The city’s water supplies had been shattered, there was little left to drink and nothing with which to fight the flames or wash away the sewage. The stench was appalling. On another side of the street was stacked a pile of weapons, rifles of many makes and descriptions, boxes of grenades and ammunition, pistols and Panzerfausts, at which both men and women picked, equipping themselves with weapons and trying to find ammunition that matched. Several old men, armed with Italian rifles and a handful of bullets each, were being marched off in the direction of the U-Bahn tunnels while a detachment of Hitler Youth on bicycles collected anti-tank weapons before riding east. At every point along the broad boulevards was destruction. Shattered tanks, trucks, buses, artillery wagons, scattered like children’s toys. A field gun lay twisted with its barrel resting on the ground in symbolic surrender. From the back of a nearby ambulance with its driver dead at the wheel came the screams for help of the wounded. There were bodies everywhere, young, old, women and children too. No attempt was being made any longer to collect or cover them, and many of those that lay in the roadway had been hideously crushed under truck wheels or tank tracks.
By the side of the Brandenburg Gate there lay the smouldering wreckage of a light airplane with its single wing pointing accusingly towards the sky, the victim of a desperate attempt to put down on the emergency airstrip by the Gate. The wreckage had been pushed aside by a tank to allow other planes to take their chance on the rubble-strewn runway. In the wooded Tiergarten beyond the Gate the trees stood stripped of all leaf and many branches. Hencke had to remind himself that it was spring, that they should all have been in blossom and bud. Trunks of uprooted trees were being hauled away by teams of men and horses to act as barricades, while from the branches of many of those still standing swung the bodies of Germans, some in uniform and some not, hanged for desertion and cowardice by the flying squads of SS and SA troops who were combing the city in an attempt to stem the growing flood of capitulation. All around there were craters and shell holes, the fresh earth thrown up in the form of gaping mouths, like graves waiting to receive their dead.
This was the reality of Berlin, the reality which those in that madhouse of the Bunker wished to maintain and extend through endless war. Except Eva. She had seen through it, recognized the self-deception, the futility of it all. If only her infatuation and loyalty hadn’t blinded her to what was necessary to end the madness. But there was no hope of that, she was devoted to Hitler. There was no more chance of her acting to thwart him than a shadow might trip its owner. Poor Eva.
In the midst of the battered Tiergarten, he came to an abrupt halt. A thought gripped him, all but choking his heart. Impractical, impossible, but a flicker of hope. And what had he got to lose, except his regrets? He started to run, back towards the Reich Chan
cellery.
‘What? What’s that you’re saying? Speak up, I can’t hear a damn thing. What about Peter Hencke?’
Bormann was bawling down the telephone, trying to make head or tail of the splutter pouring from the earpiece. The phone-lines from Karlsbad had all but collapsed, and it was the third attempt they had made to get through to him. The Czech city was surrounded by American forces who were pounding the place into hell on earth. It might be only hours before Hausser’s Army Group decided to ignore the Fuehrerbefehl to fight to the death and started surrendering. It didn’t help that Soviet troops were also scarcely twenty miles away, willing and eager to finish off the job if the Americans couldn’t.
‘Speak up, speak up!’ Bormann screamed, but it was no good. The phone was dead. He rapped the receiver a couple of times; there was no response. He snorted contemptuously as he replaced the instrument in its cradle. If it were that important they would phone back again. He resumed his packing.
All was confusion inside the reception area of the Chancellery. Hencke had to force his way past milling crowds of soldiers, rather more of whom seemed to be armed with suitcases and knapsacks than with rifles. Little pretence remained that effective control or defence of the city was still possible. At one desk, abandoned by its duty clerk, an officer gabbled down a phone making arrangements for his departure. He was obviously talking to his mistress, instructing her to pack immediately. Another phone stood unused on the desk and Hencke grabbed it anxiously, rattling the cradle for attention. He demanded to be put through to the Bunker switchboard, and was mildly surprised when the connection was immediately made. He was still more relieved when, as he requested, they connected him to Eva’s suite. Either his name meant something to the switchboard operators or, more likely, they no longer gave a damn.
When she answered the phone he could hear the noise of children laughing in the background. He surmised she was playing with Goebbels’ children and that there were probably other women in the room. She was coy, but there was evident warmth in her voice.
Last Man to Die Page 26
