Rogue Justice

by Geoffrey Household

  I have no Swedish but the meaning of the words was simple enough to guess.

  Members of the crew on duty were hanging about and grinning. I had the impression that the two Spaniards were appreciated as entertaining ship’s pets and were well aware of it. The general mood was all in their favour, for it was possible that they had been run in not for being drunk but as old enemies of General Franco who had expressed themselves too forcibly. The mate, who had no wish to get involved in an international incident, took all three of us before the captain without bothering to denounce me.

  We were stormed at for getting drunk on foreign soil, and to my astonishment he made no difference between us. I let my friends do the talking, keeping quiet except for occasional protests and exclamations in Spanish. I was told to shut up. The police, content with the captain’s apparent recognition of me, departed. The two licensed jesters were ordered back to duty. I was shown into a bare cabin which was promptly locked.

  I was left to myself, cursing my folly in trusting – though I could hardly help it – to a pair of lunatics, wishing that I had tried Switzerland, wondering how much pain I should suffer after my true identity had been discovered until it was decided that I could be given a final kick and left to die. The captain, in the presence of police, had evidently been extremely discreet in case the ship were accused of assisting and harbouring enemies of the state. But I was sure that before he sailed with his cargo of fertilizers he was bound to hand me over in his own time to the right person.

  He came into the cabin, locking the door behind him.

  ‘And now who are you?’ he asked in German.

  ‘A Nicaraguan and a neutral like yourself,’ I answered, showing my passport duly visaed for Sweden.

  ‘Then you could have obtained permission to leave. Why did you persuade these men to smuggle you on board?’

  ‘We were so happy in speaking our own language, sir.’

  ‘I did not ask you how you persuaded them, but why.’

  ‘I was unlikely to get permission to leave.’

  ‘Your passport is false?’ He suddenly snapped at me in perfect English.

  ‘I’m afraid it is, sir.’

  ‘How is it you speak Spanish?’

  ‘Because I was born in the Argentine.’

  ‘What is your true name?’

  At last I could see what had been in his mind as a possibility and that he was ready to help. He may have been an agent of some underground organization or simply pro-British. I was not prepared to give my true name until I was safely in our embassy; so I gave him a false one, saying that I had been taken prisoner at Calais in 1940.

  ‘Very well. Congratulations! I shall keep you locked up until we dock and I shall then send for an officer of your consulate and hand you over to him. And I ask you to give me your word of honour that you will never tell anyone except your own authorities that I accepted you on board.’

  He handled the tricky situation very cleverly. While I was still locked up, the vice-consul must have come on board and the necessary arrangements made. In case German agents were carrying out a routine watch on the dock gates, as they certainly would be, I went on shore with other members of the crew including the two Spanish refugees. After a further interval to throw off any followers, I was put straight on to the train to Stockholm and taken by car to a quiet residence outside the city.

  I remember what joy it was to be free. I could not sleep for joy. There had been some reserve among the British deputies who dealt with me but it was to be expected. Next day I should be able to explain myself to someone in authority.

  Next day came and still another before I was interrogated. I think the person who visited me must have been the British military attaché. I told him at once that my claim to be an escaped prisoner-of-war was a lie. He had known my father and was very friendly, though warning me that nobody was taken on trust by what he called the intelligence wallahs. I then had to explain how I came by the passport of Ernesto Menendez Peraza which enabled me to avoid internment.

  I had of course thought up a possible story. My mother, as he knew, came from an ancient family of diplomatists and soldiers. At the time of the declaration of war I had been, I said, in the remote eastern province of Czechoslovakia, where the family still held a remnant of their former estates near Uzhgorod. None of us believed that Britain and Germany were on the verge of war. If the British government had not fought when Czechoslovakia was invaded, why on earth should it fight for Poland? I was caught, still hesitating, in enemy territory, a long way from organized evacuation of British citizens, and was certain to be interned for the duration of the war.

  So I claimed to have been hidden on the estate. A Nicaraguan passport was bought for me and I had been able to live as a harmless neutral.

  My interrogator was surprised that I had never been recognized by old friends. I answered that as a schoolboy I had spent holidays with my maternal grandparents (which was true) but had had no intimate friends, only aquaintances who were unlikely to recognize the grown man.

  ‘Why did you not try to escape earlier?’

  ‘Because I could not find any safe method of doing so which would not have got my family into severe trouble if I were caught.’

  ‘I see. Now you will understand that since you are not a prisoner-of-war there must be more formalities before we can issue a British passport and arrange to send you home. Stay where you are for the present, and don’t go out beyond the garden. Ask for anything you want. And in a day or two you will be interviewed by the passport control officer.’

  I did as I was told, realizing that reference back to London for details of my birth certificate and all that was known of my past must take time. On the third day a youngish man – but with deep creases on each side of his cordial, smiling mouth – came to visit me, plonked us both down in comfortable chairs, not even wholly facing each other, and began his questions. I remember every terrible word of that interrogation, remember it better than my interrogation at Berchtesgarten. This professional was as good as theirs, and, from my point of view, the suffering was more cruel than physical pain.

  ‘I understand that when asked why you did not try to escape earlier you replied that you were afraid of getting your relatives into trouble.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘But if they were able to buy you a false Nicaraguan passport surely they could have bought from the same man an endorsement which would have enabled you to get an exit permit? Then you could have left Germany legally.’

  I answered that their contact had returned to Central America and that the present representative was honest as well as pro-German.

  ‘When did you leave England?’

  ‘In June 1938.’

  ‘Directly to Germany?’

  ‘No. I spent some months in Greece and the Middle East and then went to stay with my relations.’

  My interrogator suddenly broke into Spanish, speaking with the clipped and racy accent of, I believe, Madrid. We chatted away cordially for a minute or two and then he asked, ‘Did you speak Spanish before or did you learn it when you got your passport?’

  ‘Daily lessons while I was waiting for the passport and afterwards.’

  ‘And very sensibly you chose a South American to teach you, I see.’

  ‘Yes, a Mexican.’

  ‘In Uzhgorod? One would not have thought there was any demand for a teacher of Spanish.’

  ‘There wasn’t. I think I was his only pupil.’

  ‘What did he do for the rest of the time?’

  I hesitated, scenting danger.

  ‘Lived on his Czech wife, who had some money.’

  ‘And you trusted a type of that sort to keep his mouth shut?’

  ‘He didn’t know I was not German.’

  ‘But if you had been there so long before the war with no reason to hide, count
ry neighbours must have known you were English.’

  ‘If they did they said nothing.’

  He switched back to English.

  ‘For fourteen months before the war you wrote no letters.’

  ‘I must have done. I don’t remember.’

  ‘My inquiries suggest that none of your friends knew what had become of you and assumed that you had disappeared into Africa or Asia and might be dead.’

  ‘Letters do get lost,’ I answered weakly.

  ‘From Greece and Czechoslovakia? Quite good postal services, I believe. Now when you were caught by the outbreak of war and staying with your relatives, how close were you to the frontiers of Romania and Hungary?’

  ‘About twenty-five miles from Hungary and sixty from Romania.’

  ‘Wild country?’

  ‘Yes. Hills and forest.’

  ‘I should have thought that a man of your experience would have been able to slip over into neutral territory on foot.’

  ‘They all considered it too dangerous.’

  ‘Less dangerous than letting you risk your life with a false passport in Germany? By the way, your Nicaraguan passport was issued by the Paris consulate in 1938, not 1939.’

  ‘The date was false.’

  ‘Now please let me have the truth. As it is, I can only report that you entered Germany in 1938, returned in 1939, and that you wished to keep it quiet. Was it a political reason that took you there?’

  Foolishly I had expected that my word would be sufficient. I had never expected close questioning. The holes in my story were obvious. The only thing left was to confess.

  ‘The purpose of both journeys was to assassinate Hitler.’

  ‘I see. What a pity you didn’t! Have you any proof of that?’

  I had not. It was unthinkable to let anyone know of my intention to kill a head of state in time of peace. Even when I managed to return to England after they had left me for dead, I could not even allow Saul, my dear friend and solicitor, to know exactly where and by whom I had been torn and tortured. There was always the danger that I could be accused of acting as an agent of the British government. That was precisely what von Lauen, in his avatar of Quive-Smith, had demanded that I confess in writing.

  ‘I have no proof.’

  ‘When did you change your opinion of the Führer?’

  ‘I have never changed it.’

  ‘We have fairly accurate reports of the movements and interests of neutrals within Germany. Not from unreliable spies. From neutral diplomatists and journalists, most of whom are pro-British.’

  ‘I have not been in touch with any of them.’

  ‘Possibly not. I wished to remind you that Germany isn’t entirely closed. I have some of Ernesto’s newspaper articles and reports of his speeches.’

  ‘All that was to enable me to get close to Hitler.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘No. In the end I decided I was wasting my time and ought to be serving my country directly.’

  ‘Certainly you ought. And you really believed that with your record we should allow you into wartime Britain?’

  ‘But I am British!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. What I do not know is whether you are one of those arrogant members of the upper class who are proud to wear black shirts and betray humanity for the sake of power which the people will never give them, or perhaps you are a paid German agent provided with a suspiciously stupid German story – in fact, whether you are a conscious or unconscious traitor. Either way they found you a useful man, speaking German and English perfectly and Spanish well enough to be a convincing neutral. Which are you?’

  ‘Neither. I have told you the truth.’

  ‘You have told me a pack of lies. And England in wartime would be better without you.’

  I replied, angry for the first time, that he could not prevent me from returning, and added that if I were a German agent I would not have entered Sweden illegally and reported at once to my own people.

  ‘I think you would. German intelligence has that much sense. But if the best story they could invent for you was this nonsense of a single-handed attempt to assassinate the most heavily guarded gangster in Europe, they underrated us or perhaps wished to get rid of you. Give that some thought when you are returned with thanks!’

  ‘You cannot return me!’

  ‘That is up to the Swedish government. So far as we are concerned, you are Ernesto Menendez Peraza and your passport is in perfect order. I have no doubt that the Swedes will discreetly slip you back into Copenhagen without any need to state how you got there.’

  It was not as easy as all that. I was handed over to some operatives of what I presume was the Swedish secret service, who accepted me as a pro-German Nicaraguan and asked me why I had entered Sweden illegally. It was no good claiming to be British when my own people had rejected me, so I said that I had hoped to be allowed into England where I might be able to get home to Nicaragua if I could find a ship that would take me as far as the United States.

  The Swedes of course knew how I had arrived but couldn’t think what to do with me. They would have liked to send me straight back to Denmark, but if they did they would have to explain how I had smuggled myself into Sweden with willing help. That would be deadly for me and embarrassing for them. They talked to me quite frankly. I could be secretly shoved over the frontier into German-occupied Norway and left to fend for myself, or I could stay in Sweden under close supervision until there was a chance of shipping me across the Atlantic, which might be arranged later in the year. I did not like either alternative and came up with a simple solution.

  ‘I am authorized to reside in Berlin,’ I said. ‘I have a permit to visit Denmark. I have the correct visa to enter Sweden. All this you can see from my passport. The only thing I do not have is the German exit permit. Why don’t you forge it? It will never be noticed and I can then return openly.’

  This appeared to the good Swedes rather too disreputable, but they went into a huddle and agreed that it might be done. So I was put on a ship from Gothenburg and landed at Copenhagen with my papers in perfect order.

  I returned to my hotel to pick up my bag and pay my bill. A risk which had to be taken, since I should have been reported to the police as either missing or having skipped without paying. My explanation that I had unexpectedly fallen in with old friends from Berlin and written to the hotel that I should be away for a few days was accepted, I thought, too easily. Of course it was. My arrival had been reported as soon as I set foot in the place.

  While I was having lunch I was called down to the manager’s office, where I was alarmed to find not Danish civil police but two of the Gestapo. They checked the details of my passport and arrested me. No reason was given. No questions were put. I supposed that my unauthorized visit to Sweden must have become known, though I could not believe that either the Swedes or my compatriots had given me away.

  I was escorted for six silent hours down to Rostock by road and ferry with a sergeant sitting beside me all the time and refusing to enter into conversation. The car stopped outside that princely gaol. My body was signed for and I was taken to my cell. That I was in danger of everything that Nazi brutality could do to me was obvious. But why?

  Some hours later – just to give me time to think over crime and punishment – I was taken before Hauptmann Haase. He came pretty straight to the point.

  ‘Were you born in Bondriza, Nicaragua, as your passport states?’

  I answered that I was and that it could be confirmed, knowing that the only chance of communicating with Nicaragua would be by radio, and that it would probably take months to get any confirmation from what was probably a remote village if the consul whom von Lauen had bribed knew his job.

  ‘You entered Germany from France in April 1939. Account for your movements between the time you left Nicaragua and arrived in Fra
nce!’

  ‘I was travelling in the Americas and then came to Europe. I will try to give you exact dates but it will be difficult. And I must remind you that I am well known as a sympathizer with your country and a devoted admirer of your Führer.’

  ‘Where did you learn to speak faultless German?’

  A very awkward question, that! I had to invent a German school in Costa Rica and the name of its headmaster.

  ‘Have you ever been in England?’

  ‘Only when I landed there from New York.’

  He said nothing about Sweden or the hotel in Copenhagen. I did not like that at all, but it still did not occur to me what accusation I had to answer.

  ‘To whom does this passport really belong?’

  ‘To me of course.’

  ‘Not to a certain von Lauen?’

  This was so unexpected that eyes or face must have given me away though I tried to remain unmoved.

  ‘But I have been in Berlin for three years and my passport has never been questioned.’

  ‘Never, you swine, till you came in from Sweden, but you are caught at last –’ He jumped up and hit me across the face. ‘You a friend of the Führer! But you have forgotten the true heart of the German wife and mother. Again and again she asked for news of her husband, von Lauen. The only reply the state could give her was that it knew nothing. And then, three long weeks ago, she told us that in order to serve the fatherland should he find himself abroad in time of war he had bought a Nicaraguan passport and gave us date and number. All were warned to look out for it. Every post in the Reich. This is it! You are a spy and an impostor. I would like to deal with you myself but my orders are to send you to Berlin to account for all the filth you have committed. They will soon have the truth out of you there.’

  The heroic German wife had certainly invented a good story. She had never mentioned her husband’s private passport because she hoped to join him some day across the Atlantic. But, as never a word from him came and knowing that he had been employed as an agent abroad, at last she gave away his secret and put the best possible interpretation on it.