At the top of the steps my arms were seized by a man on each side of me and a gun shoved in my back. They ordered me to come with them without any fuss. Since they were speaking German and sure that I understood it, the game was up, but I pretended to think they were a pair of ordinary thugs, dropped my case and offered to show them that the contents were of no value. Ordered to pick it up and come along, I managed to slip Don Ernesto’s deadly passport out of my pocket and, when I stood up, to push it over the edge of the steps with my foot. That efficiency which I had admired could now be explained. The supercargo was a double agent profitably working for both the Romanian underground and the SD’s bureau in Turkey.
I was driven up the hill to Galata and led into a pleasant little mansion which had no pretensions to secrecy. No doubt the British operatives were equally well known to the Turks and made themselves just as comfortable. As was proper in a neutral country, nobody was in uniform and the room to which I was taken for interrogation might have been the office of any prosperous merchant. The man facing me across the desk was, however, true to the clean national type: a large, beer-sodden, greasy Aryan with pimples on his forehead.
‘Who are you? A Pole? Romanian?’
I answered that he had no right to question me, that I would explain my movements to Turkish police and no one else.
‘Search him!’
They went through my case right down to the toothpaste and shaving soap. Then they stretched out the faithful sheepskin coat and felt it over, at once discovering the packet of Hauptmann Haase’s papers.
‘Triumph, major! We have caught the missing Haase!’
I remained silent. It looked as if my painstaking arrangements for the death of Ernesto Menendez Peraza and disappearance of Haase in the bombing of Rostock had been successful. It was plain that Don Ernesto was assumed to be dead and his name had never reached any blacklist.
‘Swine! Deserter! Murderer of your comrades! And now caught on your way to the enemy!’
My only hope was to show calm and confidence.
‘I must ask you, major, to look carefully at my documents. You will see that I am entitled to report directly to the headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst. I can only tell you that I have been on special duty connected with the infiltration of the Romanian underground which, you will appreciate, could be a danger to our lines of communication. I know nothing of any murders, and I require you to explain the folly of arresting me when it was essential that my presence in Istanbul should not be known.’
‘Folly of arresting! You who have connived at the escape of prisoners, slaughtered guards and then gunned down the detachment sent to capture you!’
So it had been decided that the mysterious Gestapo officer who had committed all these crimes was Haase.
‘And deserter too?’ I asked ironically.
He started to pound the desk while beads of sweat appeared among the pimples. I had him shaken.
‘Confess what happened after the raid on Rostock!’
‘With pleasure. My orders were to interrogate a certain person in Rostock and to take action immediately upon any information received before his associates could be aware of his arrest. He was due to die anyway but was killed in the raid.’
‘Can that be confirmed by Berlin?’
‘Of course, if they choose to do so. And at the same time I shall be compelled to report that a most secret mission has been aborted by the officious idiocy of a bunch of petty policemen who should never have been allowed to enter the service.’
‘With your permission, sir …’ began the only one of my kidnappers who was not impressed, ‘it is possible that this fellow is not Haase but has Haase’s papers.’
I remarked, still contemptuous, that the stamped photograph in that case could not possibly fit me.
I lost a trick there. The major, though obviously reluctant to accept the advice of a subordinate, picked up his telephone and demanded, ‘Is there anyone here who has served with a Hauptmann Haase and knows him?’
There was a considerable delay while I stood motionless – the picture, I hoped, of a correct German officer whose honour had been unjustly attacked. The answer came back that no one knew a Haase, but that the Salonica office might.
‘Send a signal at once requesting urgent reply!’
‘You think it wise?’ I asked.
‘Owing to the strategic importance of Salonica, the office is heavily staffed. There is a good chance that somebody will know you.’
It was a hopeful sign that he said ‘know you’ not ‘know Haase’. But if there was somebody in Salonica who did know Haase it was the end of me. The only comforting thought was that as a deserter impersonating Haase I should be cleanly shot, whereas Ernesto, the so-nearly-successful assassin of Hitler, was destined to be kept alive so long as there was enough left of him to answer yes or no.
While we waited, the major was almost cordial and asked me to sit down. The two thugs, however, remained behind my chair. After a long pause, I remarked casually as one officer to another, ‘What I cannot understand is why I should have been posted as a deserter.’
‘It looks to me, if I may say so, as if you should have reported before leaving.’
‘To whom? They were all dead or had run off in a panic. Unlike you and me, most of them had never heard a shot fired before.’
That pleased him, especially since I am sure he had never heard a shot fired himself. In anger, that is. Executions don’t count.
‘There seems to have been a slip-up somewhere,’ I went on. ‘But I do suggest these fellows of yours should not have acted so precipitately on a report from some Romanian seaman, probably a double agent, that some scoundrel of a resistance fighter was to be secretly landed.’
The reply from Salonica came in. Yes, the head of the Gestapo knew Haase well and would be most willing to identify him. He had always considered it absurd that such a man could be accused of desertion and murder. The major might safely discuss the matter by telephone and it was unnecessary to mention names or military details. From the ensuing conversation I gathered that the Gestapo chief regretted that he was too busy to fly to Istanbul but saw no reason why the officer in question should not be flown to Salonica.
The major was inclined to snort and bumble – I suppose because I was being taken out of his jurisdiction and he might be done out of the credit of either catching me or releasing me. One of his aides made up his mind for him by saying that there was a plane going to Salonica in the morning.
‘It’s laid on for General Kurtbek of the Turkish Ordnance. I’ll find out if there is room for two civilians. But the Turks will need proof of identity. Suppose this man refuses to go and asks for help?’
‘If he does, it’s proof enough that he isn’t Haase. We can then get the Turks to take him over as an illegal immigrant and later have him extradited on a charge of murder.’
It was time for me to show the indignation that the real Haase would have done.
‘This is all pig swill,’ I stormed. ‘I am what my documents say I am. I am not likely to sing out at the airport. Order the consul to issue a passport for me in any name you please! It must all be done discreetly, and as soon as I am identified I must be returned at once to Istanbul to carry out my assignment.’
By now they had all accepted the probability that I really was Hauptmann Haase of the Sicherheitsdienst and that Haase was not that mysterious officer who had left behind such a trail of devastation at Stettin and on the road to Cracow. The major actually apologized to me for the accommodation he was compelled to offer for the night. It was their prison cell but he was sure I would understand that, though he did not doubt my word, he was bound officially to take precautions. They would make it as comfortable as they could. They did, throwing a mat over a patch of bloodstains, giving me sheets as well as blankets, and providing a chamber pot with the head of Churchill on the
bottom. Typical humour. I used the washbasin.
Early in the morning a German passport in the name of Ludwig Weber was brought to me to sign. My case and Haase’s documents were returned. We left for the airport. My guard – one of the kidnappers – was armed and made sure that I could see he was.
All night the possibilities of any escape at all had been running through my head in the intervals of dozing. So much depended on actual conditions during the drive to the airport and on arrival that I refused to take any firm decision. But now that we were on our way I had to make an instant choice between two alternatives both likely to end in my execution. On these occasions one does not reason but thinks in pictures. I saw myself visited in a Turkish gaol by the British consul uncertain whether this Ludwig Weber was a German deserter or a British traitor. I wasn’t going to play the escaped prisoner-of-war again. Then extradition – or, if that was too much trouble, found to have committed suicide in my cell, thanks to a bribable Turkish gaoler.
Nothing, nothing. Again no proof of nationality. Again to be humiliated as an enemy of my country. Those damned three years in Germany. To hell with their acceptance or rejection. Revenge was what I wanted. The memory of Domnitza had curiously revived still more memories of my love and revived anger too. A second picture came up of sun on the mountainsides and seas of Greece if ever I could reach them. Yes, rather than rot among the prisons and intrigues and secret agents of shadowed Istanbul, I would go to Salonica.
The plane was a little Fokker with four seats behind the pilot. To preserve the decencies, I was presented to General Kurtbek as a distinguished German industrialist. He sat on my left with the Gestapo guard behind us and turned out, like so many of the upper class of his country, to have the affability of a genial European and the courtesy of a Moslem gentleman. His uniform was more or less British with Sam Browne belt and revolver.
We soon got into conversation, using English, which he spoke with an entertaining blend of guttural accent and clipped British army speech. After relations had been established, he appreciated that he was not going to be bored during the hour and a half ’s flight to Salonica. He knew of course a great deal about the Russians and had a high opinion of their strategy which, he thought, Hitler underrated.
Ludwig Weber complained that before the war the Turkish army had been largely equipped by the British and added, ‘You are not coming in on their side, I hope.’
‘You bet your life we are not,’ he replied.
I remember that exact idiomatic answer.
‘I am going to Salonica to examine some of your latest armour. Your Mark IV tank is better than anything the British have got.’
An inspiration. I saw half a chance. And my guard did not speak English.
‘Better soldiers than we expected,’ I said, ‘but poorly equipped. For example take that .38 you have there. It’s badly balanced.’
He did exactly what I had dared to hope – pulled it out of the holster and weighed it on the palm of his right hand. I grabbed it, whipped round, shot my guard and finished him off with a second.
‘Don’t move, sir! I mean you no harm at all.’
I then dealt with the startled pilot.
‘You will make a course for Thessaly. I warn you that I know Greece well. I also warn you that I shall be shot when we reach Salonica so I don’t mind if I die now. Don’t touch your radio! You will put us down somewhere flat in the valley of the Aliakmon.’
I turned to the general, who appeared less worried than I was, sitting back and enjoying the theatre.
‘Do you know Macedonia, sir?’
‘Sorry. Wasn’t old enough for the Balkan Wars.’
I told the pilot to keep over the sea well south of the three peninsulas of Chalcidice and I would then give him further orders. When the three easily recognizable points were passed, I ordered, ‘North-west and leave Mount Olympus to port!’
But three or four mountain tops were poking through light cloud and, as a complete amateur in aerial navigation, I could not tell which was Olympus. The pilot knew it, sneaked off too far to the north and tried to persuade me that the Vardar was the Aliakmon. Possible landing grounds were more likely in the broad valley of the Vardar but it was far too close to Salonica. I dithered until cloud-gathering Zeus went into action and blew them away. There, now behind us, was unmistakable Olympus.
I shoved the muzzle in the back of his neck and he banked to port so violently that he probably meant me to lose my balance, in which case the imperturbable Turkish general might come to his aid. The only result was that I accidentally pressed the trigger and had the luck to hit the windscreen not the pilot. That put an end to any tricks. Olympus and the Aliakmon were clear but anything flat enough to land on was not. The pilot came down, explored and chose a cultured strip of corn. We crashed through the young stems and demolished a vineyard, coming to rest with one wing well dug in and the tail in the air.
Beyond bruises none of us was hurt. Better still, no troops were in sight and the only visible road was a rutted track. The mountains sparkled where bare rock caught the midday sun and here and there were dark ravines like the stripes on a tiger from which another tiger could observe his prey. Men were running out from a white village about a mile off to see what damage we had done to ourselves and the crops – the crops being the more important in view of the shortage of food in conquered Greece. The pilot had no fear of them, aware that Greek villagers knew very well what would happen to them if a German was attacked. The general was none too certain of his status. He remarked that if a Turk were present at any disaster the Greeks could be trusted to put the blame on him.
I saw that there was no reason why he should be recognized as a Turk if he remained bare-headed and ripped off his flashy epaulettes.
‘For the moment let us both be British,’ I suggested. ‘We have some proof ’ – I pointed to the dead guard, whose face, owing to the angle of the plane, seemed to be looking through the window – ‘A pity he is not in uniform!’
‘Which uniform would he be wearing?’
‘Black. The Gestapo.’
‘And you were his prisoner?’
‘On the way to the firing squad.’
‘I did notice that you spoke English without a trace of a German accent. Well, I’ll do as you say. At least we shall be sure of lunch and a glass of wine while I wait for rescue. The Greeks learned hospitality from us. But suppose they insist on holding me?’
By this time we were surrounded by a band of cautious but very angry Greeks demanding compensation for the damage. In my inadequate Greek, I assured them they would get it so long as they treated the pilot with courtesy.
‘And the British officer?’ one asked. ‘Did he kill that man?’
‘I killed him.’
‘And you also are British?’
When I replied that I was, there was great excitement. They forgot all about the crops and wanted to show us the way to the sea at once.
‘But the pilot is German. You’ll need him alive to explain to the soldiers what happened.’
I managed to produce a mangled and incredible story that the British officer was a prisoner on parole and that it was against his honour to try to escape. This resulted in a further wave of admiration for the British. I repeated it to the general, telling him that I was off to the mountains of Macedonia and he could be quite certain of lunch. He shook my hand warmly and hoped we would meet again.
‘Shan’t ask you to return my revolver,’ he said. ‘Trust you’ll find it not so poorly balanced after all. Just a way of showing my neutrality. I wish Hitler’s Reich was at the bottom of hell. On the other hand Russia is our hereditary enemy. And look here, old man! You’re going to need this and I can always complain you pinched it.’
He shoved into my pocket a mixed wad of German marks and Greek drachmae.
‘Just a way of saying thank you for London in th
e nineteen-thirties and all those splendid messes where I was entertained. I was then assistant military attaché …’
Two of the villagers took me straight up into the mountains after I had threatened them with my revolver, so that both pilot and general, in genial mood after goat’s milk cheese and the local wine, could swear they had not given me willing assistance.
My guides set out to take me up the Aliakmon and on to high ground from which I could pick out the landmarks which would lead me round Mount Olympus to the sea. Every Greek on meeting some survivor of the British defeat a year earlier assumed that he wanted to reach the sea. As soon as I reasonably could, I sent them back to their village, telling them to say they had escaped from me and, if threatened with any violent method of interrogation, to tell the truth. Having thus left a false trail for any search party, I turned back to the Aliakmon, where towards evening I found myself among the remains of mounds and trenches. Whether they dated from this war or the last I did not know, but the derelict defences offered a night’s lodging.
The air was warm and carried scents of the herbs of Greece. I had no need to tuck the fleecy coat around me. I lay there considering what sort of damage a single man, carrying on his private war, could do to the enemy with no skills but those of the hunter and lone rover. When I made my despairing choice to risk the flight to Salonica, the mind’s picture was romantic. It hadn’t time to be much else. Food. Well, I had enough for two or three days. After that I could probably depend on villages and shepherds once the word had gone round that I was careful and trustworthy. Money. Enough for the present. Clothes. I couldn’t go round in my Bucharest suit, but I could keep trousers or coat if sufficiently dirty and obtain a peasant’s top or bottom in exchange. Arms. Four rounds in a .38 revolver was not much for a private war; I needed one of those military hosepipes but a rifle was infinitely preferable. Identity. Well, Private Bill Smith would do for local purposes. The passport in the name of Ludwig Weber might come in handy if presented to simple soldiery who rarely had dealings with the Gestapo. I also retained Haase’s documents, though I would never again dare to use them except in extreme emergency.
Rogue Justice Page 12
