by Colin Forbes
It had been a long speech and he hoped to God that it had satisfied Hahnemann on the one question which seemed to bother him - why were they aboard the Hydra? There was a hint of respect in the German's eyes now and Prentice decided to press a point home, forgetting that it's always a mistake to overdo a good thing.
'So we're your prisoners-of-war at the moment,' Prentice continued, 'but don't forget that the Royal Navy controls the Aegean. If there's a British destroyer in the area you may find me holding that gun within a few hours, so let's drop the threats.'
'There is a British destroyer near here?' The gun muzzle was aimed straight at Prentice's chest and the note of cold fury had come back into the German's voice. 'You know this?' The words were an accusation and Hahnemann's jaw muscles were rigid with tension, a tension which instantly communicated itself to the two men with their backs to the wall. The tip of the gun muzzle quivered, the outward sign of the nervous vibration bottled up inside the man holding the weapon. Christ! Prentice was thinking, we're a nervous twitch away from a fusillade. Where the devil did I go wrong? He spoke carefully but quickly, his eyes fixed on Hahnemann's as he struggled to gauge the effect of his words while he was talking. 'I'm not thinking of any particular destroyer - I'm in the army, not the navy - you know that. But these seas are constantly patrolled so it's just a matter of luck - yours or ours.' He shut up, hoping for the best, determined not to overdo it a second time. His shirt was clinging to his wet back and he daren't look at Ford in case Hahnemann thought he was passing a signal. It was becoming a nightmare and he had a grisly feeling they might not live through it.
Turn round and lie on the floor - stretch out your hands to the fullest extent.'
The unexpected order threw Prentice off balance; it was impossible to keep up with this German through his swift changes of mood, but at least there weren't going to be any more of those trigger-loaded questions. He was on his knees when he grasped the meaning of the order, saw out of the corner of his eye the vicious arc of the machine-pistol butt descending on poor Ford's head, and as the sergeant slumped unconscious over the floor he swung round to swear at the German. The muzzle was aimed point-blank at his chest. Prentice was obeying the fresh order to look at the wall when a ton-weight landed on his tender scalp. A brilliant burst of light flashed before his eyes and then vanished in the flood of darkness which overwhelmed him.
The rifle muzzle was pressed into Macomber's face when he opened the cabin door in response to the urgent knocking, and the threat was accompanied by an apology in German. 'You must remain in your cabin until further orders, Herr Dietrich. I am sorry...'
'Whose orders?' Macomber stood with his hand behind his back, his manner harsh and unimpressed by the sight of the weapon. For a moment it seemed as though he would push Volber out of the way by walking straight into him The German had paused, uncertain how to handle this aggressive reaction, but Hahnemann, who stood close behind with a machine-pistol in bis hands, was not taken aback.
'By order of the Wehrmacht!'
Macomber stared past Volber, ignoring the squat man as he gazed bleakly at Hahnemann. Again it seemed as though he would push the rifle barrel aside and Hahnemann instinctively raised his own weapon. 'That is not enough,' Macomber rumbled Teutonically. 'The officer's name, if you please.' He might have been a colonel addressing a subordinate.
'Lieutenant Hahnemann, Alpenkorps.' The German had replied automatically and had felt the reflex of snapping his heels to attendon, but he desisted just in time. Now he was furious with his own reply, but there was something about the passenger which he found intimidating, an air of authority which was disturbing. 'You will stay in your cabin,' he barked. 'Do you understand? Anyone found outside their cabin without permission will be shot!' Immediately he had spoken he had doubts, and the steely look in Macomber's eye was anything but reassuring. Who the hell could he be? 'Lieutenant Hahnemann?' Macomber repeated slowly, and there was an uncomfortable, mocking note in his voice. 'I think I can remember that for later!'
Hahnemann persisted, but more quietly. 'Please give my sergeant the key of your cabin so it can be locked from the outside.'
Macomber gazed thoughtfully at Hahnemann a moment longer, then turning on his heel so that the cabin door hid part of his body, he slipped the Luger back inside bis coat pocket and re-entered the cabin, ignoring the request for the key. Volber he could have dealt with, but the lieutenant's machine-pistol was quite another matter. With a muttered expression of annoyance Hahnemann walked forward, extracted the key himself and locked the door on the outside. The Scot straightened up from the newspaper spread over the table, his expression grim. This was even worse than he had imagined: they were taking over the whole ship.
His initial reaction on opening the door was that the assassins had come for him- This fleeting impression had been succeeded by the revelation that they were not interested in him at all, that a major Wehrmacht operation was under way, a stroke as audacious as the Norwegian campaign*. He stood listening, his head cocked to one side. Yes, he was right - the Hydra's engines were slowing. For the mid-sea rendezvous, of course. They must have taken control of the engine-room at an earlier stage and by now they would command the bridge. An efficient operation planned with the usual meticulous care and attention to detail - including the bringing aboard of Herr Schnell and his outsize cabin trunk containing the weapons. Retrieving his smoking cigar from the ash-tray, he switched off the light and used his torch to find his way across the cabin to the porthole.
The Hydra's engines had almost stopped and the Rupescu was so close that a collision seemed likely. Standing by the porthole without any attempt at concealment, his cigar glowing for anyone who cared to see it, he watched the transfer of the German troops from the Rumanian vessel to the Greek ferry. The soldiers, wearing life-jackets, were coping with a heavy swell - had they arrived later or had the weather worsened earlier the operation might have proved impossible. German luck again, Macomber thought bitterly - like the luck of the marvellous weather over France in 1940. You can't get far without luck, he was thinking as he watched a boatload of troops being lowered to the sea. There must have been almost twenty men aboard and he was praying for an accident as the craft almost capsized when the waves heaved up to meet it, but at the last moment someone released the ropes and the boat followed the natural curvature of the sea. The uniformed troops wore soft, large-peaked caps and were heavily laden with equipment. Alpenkorps. A unit of the elite mountain troops who had conquered Norway, men trained to fight in appalling terrain such as the peninsula of Zervos.
He remained standing there for some time, his body now fully accustomed to the sway of the ship under his widespread feet, and during that time he counted the transfer of over two hundred men to the Greek ferry. More than enough to take Zervos, providing they received heavy reinforcements in the near future.
* Norway was seized by apparently innocent merchant ships full of German troops which sailed up the Norwegian coast within gun range of the unsuspecting Royal Navy.
After all, unless the Allies had put their own troops ashore on the peninsula the only people who stood in their way were a handful of monks at the monastery and a few fishermen at Katyra. Even when the transfer had been completed, when a boat containing, so far as Macomber could make out, the crew of the Rupescu, had accomplished the narrow crossing, he still waited at the porthole as the Hydra's engines began to throb with power.
The ferry had resumed its interrupted voyage, was moving away and leaving the Rumanian vessel behind like an empty carcass, when Macomber opened the porthole and thrust his head out into the elements. The rising force of the knife-edged wind chilled his face as he watched the Rupescu slowly settling in the growing turbulence of the sea. They had switched off all the lights before they left her but by the light of the moon he saw her bows awash, the curling waves submerging her decks, the water-logged wallow of the doomed vessel. The sea-cocks had been opened, of course. He was still leaning out of the porthole whe
n her superstructure disappeared under the billowing waves, leaving for a brief moment only the white funnel thrust up like some strange lighthouse in mid-Aegean. Then that, too, sank and there was no trace left that the Rupescu had ever existed.
Macomber withdrew his head, rammed the porthole shut, switched on the cabin light and began slapping his hands across his body to warm up. Sitting down on the bunk, he resisted the fatal temptation to sprawl his legs along it, and lit a fresh cigar. Still no chance to sleep, and it looked as though it might be a long while yet before he dared close his eyes. The period of standing by the porthole had tired his limbs horribly but his growing fury and the night sea air had made him steadily more alert, and now as he smoked the anger helped him to think. All his eager anticipations of returning to a haven of peace had temporarily left him, had left him at the first sight of those uniforms he knew so well. He had to do something to upset the timetable, the careful plan they would be working to, because they were bad improvisers and when things went wrong they reacted badly. His main hope was to persist in his impersonation, to throw them off-balance at the outset, to gain the freedom to move around the ship freely. He stood up to fight down the sleepiness he felt again, shoved the hat on his head, the hat which made him look even more Germanic, and glanced in the washbasin mirror. No need to assume an expression of grimness: that was already only too evident. You're Dietrich, he said softly, so from now on forget a chap called Macomber ever existed. And they'll have to maintain radio silence so they can't check anything. It's the first encounter that matters. You're Dietrich, Dr Richard Dietrich. He sat down again in the chair, impatient for the first confrontation, and when they came for him it was close to midnight.
CHAPTER FOUR
Saturday, Midnight
With his machine-pistol cradled under his arm, Lieutenant Hahnemann, now dressed in Alpenkorps uniform, unlocked the door, turned the handle and kicked it open with his foot. Dietrich was sitting at the little table, still wearing his coat and hat with his legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles. He was smoking a fresh cigar and the rude entry had no effect on him, caused no change in his relaxed stance; rather it seemed as though he went out of his way to demonstrate his bored unconcern. Dietrich folded his arms. He was regarding Hahnemann as he might have regarded a piece of badly cooked meat, then he transferred his attention to the tall, beak-nosed man who walked briskly in behind the lieutenant. A striking-looking German in his early forties, he held himself very erect as his cold blue eyes studied the seated passenger, and under his civilian coat, which he wore open at the front, Dietrich saw the boots and uniform of the Alpenkorps.
'This is Colonel Burckhardt,' Hahnemann informed him harshly. He paused as though expecting some reaction. 'People normally stand in the colonel's presence,' he went on bleakly.
'Tell this man to go away so we can talk.' Dietrich addressed the suggestion to Burckhardt who was looking down at him with interest. The passenger hadn't moved since he had entered the cabin.
'You can talk with both of us,' Burckhardt began tersely. 'Unless you have a very good reason for wishing to speak to me alone.' Like Hahnemann earlier, Burckhardt was wondering why he had reacted in a way he had hardly intended. And yet...
'What I have to say is not for junior officers.' Dietrich's brief mood of amiability was vanishing rapidly and he looked at the colonel grimly. 'I should have thought you hadn't a great deal of time to waste, so shall we get on with it?'
Burckhardt's expression showed no reaction, but inwardly he felt a trifle off-balance - he had been going to say almost precisely the same thing and now this aggressive-looking brute had forestalled him. He had the odd feeling that he was losing ground so he spoke decisively to the lieutenant. 'Hahnemann, you have duties to attend to. Leave me with this man until I call you.'
'He may be armed,' Hahnemann protested.
'Of course I am armed,' Dietrich replied swiftly, anticipating Burckhardt's next question. A lesser man than Colonel Heinz Burckhardt might have felt annoyance, but the colonel had risen to command an elite arm of the Wehrmacht and he had a grudging appreciation of an independent attitude. 'I am going to take out a Luger pistol,' Dietrich explained, staring at Hahnemann as though he doubted his ability to grasp plain German, 'so kindly keep a hold on yourself - and your weapon.' Producing the pistol from his coat pocket, he laid it on the table. 'It is fully loaded, incidentally - I never bluff when I have to use a weapon, which, fortunately, is a rare occasion.' The sight of the regulation pistol, a minor point, subtly reinforced Burckhardt's growing interest in the huge German passenger. For a moment Hahnemann hesitated whether to pick up the gun, but Dietrich's attention was so clearly concentrated on the colonel, was so obviously no longer aware of his presence, that he felt at a loss and glanced at Burckhardt for instructions.
'Leave us,' the colonel told him brusquely. 'I shall be on the bridge in a few minutes.'
Dietrich waited until the cabin door had closed and then stood up slowly. The action startled Burckhardt, who was six feet tall; he had realized that Dietrich also was a tall man but now he was able to see that the German civilian stood two to three inches above him. Rarely impressed by another man's physique, Burckhardt found himself a little overawed by the formidable figure who stood before him with his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped behind his broad back. Dietrich waited a moment, then put a hand inside his coat, extracted something and dropped it on the table. 'My papers, Colonel
Burckhardt.'
With a mounting sense of irritation Burckhardt looked at the card carefully, glancing up to find Dietrich watching him without any particular expression. 'You're an archaeologist, I see, Dr Dietrich?' He couldn't keep the flatness out cf his voice: he had suspected that this passenger was someone important from Berlin; it was the only explanation for his arrogant manner.
'Look at them carefully,' Dietrich urged him gruffly. 'See anything unusual about them?'
'No!' Burckhardt replied after a second perusal and there was a snap in his voice now.
'Good!' Dietrich lifted his shoulders and towered over the colonel as he went on with withering sarcasm. 'I was travelling aboard a Greek ferry which might at any time have been stopped and searched by a British destroyer. Under those conditions would you really expect me to present them with papers showing I am a senior officer of the Abwehr?'
Burckhardt stood quite still and his heart sank. Here was the explanation for Dietrich's overbearing attitude since he had entered the cabin. God, the Abwehr! That damned Intelligence organization of the incredibly influential Admiral Canaris. They never told anyone what they were going to do - not until they had done it. And they never told anyone where they were going until they had been there and arrived back in Berlin. They were responsible to no one except the wily old admiral who had started his career with naval Intelligence, and who was now answerable only to the Führer himself. The Abwehr was disliked - feared might be a better word - by all the regular Intelligence services because it lived a life of its own, but even more because of its legendary record of coups. In some uncanny way the admiral managed to be right every time in his forecast of enemy intentions. Oh yes, Burckhardt had heard of the Abwehr, but this was the first time he had met one of them. That is, assuming Dietrich was who he claimed to be ... He looked up suspiciously as something else landed on the table.
'Now you can see what I would have dropped through the nearest porthole if we had been stopped - along with the Luger, of course.'
Dietrich's tone was ironic, close to sneering, and Burckhardt caught the tone and felt the blood rush to his head, so for a short time while he examined the second card Baxter had doctored and handed over in Giurgiu, his normally ice-cold judgement deserted him. Dietrich walked across the cabin to look out through the porthole, still talking over his shoulder.
'You will require absolute proof of my identity, so you had better send a wireless message to Berlin. I can give you the signal code.'
'Not while we are at sea
,' Burckhardt rapped out. 'We must preserve radio silence at all costs.'
'I had assumed that,' Dietrich retorted brusquely. 'I meant after you had gone ashore. You have dealt with the two Englanders, I hope?'
'Yes, Hahnemann dealt with the whole operation most efficiently. They are only a lieutenant and a sergeant travelling home from Turkey.'
'You knew then beforehand that these two men were being put on board?'
Burckhardt paused, staring at the back of the Abwehr man who continued gazing out to sea. There was something in the way the question had been phrased which disturbed him, which made him delay his departure for the bridge. Had there been some awful slip-up somewhere? 'Knew?' he repeated warily.
'Yes, "knew", I said. Did you know?' Dietrich had swung round and was talking with his cigar in his mouth, his legs splayed as he continued to dominate the conversation.
'No,' the colonel admitted reluctantly. 'I was worried when I first heard about them but they are of very junior rank...'
'Are you certain of that? Papers can be easily forged or doctored - including army pay-books. These two men could be far more important for all we know.' He paused to give his insidious suggestion maximum impact. 'They could be on board because some hint of your operation has reached the Allies. You may be lucky they never reached the wireless-room.' He leaned forward grimly. 'I take it they did not reach the wireless-room?'
