by Nick Cook
“And where the bloody ‘ell do you think you’re going Joe?” The hand that had grabbed him prevented him from reaching the officer who was sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. He turned round to confront the sentry. The clipped, English public-school tones of his voice echoed throughout the sparsely furnished lobby.
“I am an officer of the German armed forces and I have come to surrender myself to your commanding officer. I have vital, urgent information to convey.”
Amazement registered on the soldier’s face before he drew the bolt back on his Sten and held the muzzle firmly up against Herries’ chest. The corporal didn’t need to summon the captain over. In a moment he was beside the sentry, his startled eyes searching Herries’ haggard face.
“What the devil’s going on here? Who are you?” The voice was pure Sandhurst.
“My name is Herries. I am an Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS. I have come to turn myself in to the British authorities, because I have some vital information which I must report to your commanding officer.” Herries cast a sidelong look through the open door, beyond which Russian and American soldiers were trying to get a glimpse of him. The corporal also noticed the prying eyes and slammed the door shut.
“Hold on a bloody moment, let me get this right,” the infantry captain said. “You’re a German officer, wearing Russian uniform, talking to me in King’s English and you want to surrender to my commanding officer with urgent information?”
“That’s right,” Herries said levelly. “And if you value those pips on your shoulder, Captain, you should take me to him now.”
The officer looked at Herries for a long time. Then his mouth cracked into a smile. “Well, how do you do,” he said. “And I’m Winston fucking Churchill. Corporal, lock this man up in the stores room and keep him under armed guard while I fetch the colonel. He’s not going to believe this.”
* * * * * * * *
Colonel Jackson listened at first impassively to Herries’ story and then with increasing distaste.
The picture that Herries painted made him sick - an actual regiment of British volunteers fighting on the Russian Front. Alone in the stores room with Herries, Jackson would have gladly put a bullet through the traitor’s head but for the startling information he was holding.
Herries, made to stand in the corner of the dim room with only his trousers on, was shivering convulsively. He was clearly ill, but Jackson felt no compassion.
“I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask, but even if I had, why should I believe you?” Jackson asked with a sneer. ‘The fact that your Reich is on its last knees obviously would not have escaped your attention, so you came up with this incredible tale to save your stinking neck.”
Herries clutched his bare chest with his arms, trying to warm himself against the cold and damp of the room. His words came between intermittent sobs and shivers.
“Colonel, why the hell should I give myself up to you, right out of the blue, when I could have taken off to Turkey, or Switzerland, or any other fucking place you care to think of where there aren’t British, American or Russian troops to hunt me down? I have come to you because I have information which you cannot afford to ignore, but I have put a price on that information. It’s full immunity from prosecution or no deal.”
Jackson, who had listened to Herries whine for the best part of an hour, exploded with rage.
“How dare you talk to me of deals, you damned traitor! If we want any information we can beat it out of you right now.”
Herries stepped forward into the light of the single lamp which hung from the ceiling. He gave Jackson a wry smile.
“Do you really think I would have neatly memorized the plan just so that you could make me cough it up, Colonel? You must be joking. The original documents - giving names of participants, dates, times and so forth - are hidden in a very safe place just outside the town. And you’d never find it in a month of Sundays, Jackson, so you can put that idea right out of your head.”
The Colonel took a step forward to strike Herries across the face. Herries retreated back into the gloom of the corner.
“Colonel, you can’t beat the location of that hiding place out of me either. You see, I’m going to die unless I get medical treatment for this dysentery very soon and any persuasive techniques used by your men are only going get me there a little quicker. I really have nothing to lose by keeping my mouth shut under interrogation.”
Jackson reluctantly lowered his arm. He would have to take guidance from General Styles. He just hoped the general was in the mood to listen. He turned on his heels, but Herries’ cracking voice made him pause by the door.
“Remember, Colonel, I want a signed affidavit of immunity before I tell you anything. But you’d better hurry. I can tell you that time’s running out.”
Jackson slammed the door behind him and called for the sentry.
Herries passed out, unable to fight the fatigue any longer.
* * * * * * * *
For a split second the reality of the door crashing open mingled with Herries’ tortured nightmare. Dietz wasn’t dead; he had finally caught up with him. Lights and noise exploded inside his exhausted mind.
Herries pressed his bare back against the damp wall in a vain effort to get away, but rough hands pulled at his body and dragged him to his feet. He opened his eyes and squinted under the light of the lone lamp to see not Dietz, but Colonel Jackson before him. Two soldiers gripped him tightly by the arms.
Jackson swiped Herries hard across the cheek with the back of his hand.
“You’d better wake up you little bastard, because you and I are going for a ride.”
The slap drove some of the fatigue from his body, the stinging sensation giving way to a dull throb at the point where Jackson’s signet ring had partially torn the soft flesh of his lower lip. But it was not so much the pain as Jackson’s words which jolted Herries out of his exhaustion.
“I told you,” Herries croaked, “no signed affidavit, no deal.”
The soldiers’ grips tightened on his arms. Jackson nodded at a third soldier whose fist crashed into Herries’ stomach, driving upwards into the base of his ribcage.
“I warned you, you traitor. Don’t talk to me about deals.”
As Herries slumped, the soldiers let the body sink onto the floor. Herries looked up at Jackson to see him holding up a piece of paper.
“You deserve more than that,” Jackson sneered, “but General Styles’ signature on this forbids me to treat you too roughly.”
“Give me that.” The pain shot through Herries’ ribs as he grabbed desperately at the sheet of paper. Clenching it with shaking hands, he saw the official stamp and the scrawled hand of General Styles. It was what he needed. It was his passport home.
Jackson waited till he could see Harries tasting immunity. Then he pulled the paper from his grip.
“Oh no,” he said shaking his head at Herries. “We need proof that what you’ve been garbling about for the past few hours is fact. Then you can have your miserable reprieve. Show us your evidence, Herries, if you can.”
Herries, still on his knees, brought the blood up from the back of his throat and spat at Jackson’s feet. “Before I lead you there, we’re going to pass by the nearest Red Cross outpost and drop off that letter. Only that way do I get to trust your promises of freedom.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kruze wanted to reach out to the trousers that were lying tantalizingly close to the bed and pull the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but he resisted the temptation because he knew that the motion would stir Penny from her sleep.
It was a lovely little room, exactly how he’d always imagined the bedroom of an English country cottage should look. The bunched curtains, with their floral pattern, allowed a thin stream of late afternoon light to play across the bedspread and cast shimmering reflections off the brass bedstead onto the faintly undulating surface of the old ceiling.
He shifted slightly, as if trying to
shake himself out of the sudden depression which gripped him.
“What are you thinking?” Her voice wasn’t tinged with sleep and when he looked into her face, close to his, her eyes were bright and alert. He realized that she had been awake all the time.
“I was trying to imagine how it would be to wake up in a place like this every morning.” It was part truth. “I’m not sure I could.”
“I could take that the wrong way.”
“You shouldn’t,” he smiled at her. “It’s nothing to do with you ... us. Nor the cottage. It’s a perfect place.”
She rolled onto him and brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across his eye.
She kissed his forehead lightly. “England isn’t for you, is it? It’s not where the future lies.”
“Isn’t it? You tell me.”
“You already know how I feel.”
“Do I?”
She stretched across him, her breasts brushing across his stomach, and pulled the cigarettes and lighter from his trousers. She produced two cigarettes, putting one in his mouth and one in her own. The glow from the flame bathed her face in soft, orange light. It reminded him of the time he had first been struck by her beauty at the dinner party.
“I see you on a homestead, a farm -”
He rolled her onto her back. “We’re not getting into that again.”
She took a light draw on the end of the cigarette. “I never mentioned Rhodesia, did I? It could be in Australia, or South America, perhaps. Somewhere far from here.”
“Do you figure in that picture?” He put his arms round her and smiled to defuse the gravity of the question.
“Darling, at the moment we’re in the depths of the English countryside, huddled beside each other for warmth.” She laughed. “Those places don’t exist right now. We’ve got to win a war first.”
He laughed with her. “I’ve come too far to get caught out now.”
Her expression changed so suddenly it shocked him.
“Robert said that once,” she whispered. The words hung heavily in the room. It was as if Fleming were there, watching them.
“Do you still love him?” He hadn’t meant to say it, but the vacuum left by her words compelled the question.
She rolled away from him, resting her head on the pillow.
“The man I loved died in a hospital ward over a year ago.
He had pried too deeply and cursed himself for the intrusion.
“A divorcee,” she said presently, putting on a brave smile. “I wonder how my parents will take it.”
“As long as you’re happy, surely they’ll...”
She smiled again, the sadness of the previous minute gone from her face. “Tell that to my father.”
“But will they back you, your parents, if it gets rough?
It might, you know. Perhaps we should be more careful - I don’t mean for me, it’s gone beyond that. The worst the RAF can do is reduce me to the ranks.”
“And stop you from flying. Could you live with that?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“In any case,” she added quickly. “It’s not going to come to that. Robert’s not going to contest it. If he had wanted to he would have called me, or written.”
The drone of an aircraft, somewhere far above them, probably searching for a gap in the mist through which to land, was the only sound to be heard.
“As for my parents, they’ll be disappointed, but they know what things have been like for the past year or so. I’ve tried to hide it, to put on a brave face, but they know.”
He was about to speak, but she put her finger to his lips.
“No more of this talk. We live for now, you and I. I haven’t had a chance to do that in a long time.”
She jumped out of bed and pulled a dressing gown over her shoulders.
“How about a walk? It’s so beautiful around here, you’ll see.” Her enthusiasm was infectious and he smiled. “I’d love to bring Billy when he’s better, have him to stay for a while. You would come, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” he said. He thought of the boy from the East End of London and wondered whether he would feel out of place too. A stranger in a strange land.
“We’ll pass by the baker’s on the way back. If we’re lucky they might even have some bread. The rationing’s not nearly as bad as it is in London.”
Kruze threw back the sheets and moved over to where she was standing, half-dressed, by the window.
“You’re right,” he said, and kissed her softly. “No more talk about tomorrow.”
* * * * * * * *
Herries, washed and in clean clothes, was ushered from the back of the truck by an officer and four military policemen. The DC-3 was already lined up on the runway, its propellers turning. The pilot watched nervously out of the window as the POW and his escort jumped into the back of the aircraft and the door was closed. He didn’t waste any time in opening up the throttles. He’d seen too many pilots caught on the ground to know that it was madness to loiter at an exposed airfield so close to the front.
He’d tried to find out what all the fuss was about while they were waiting for the truck to arrive, but the officer had told him to mind his own business. Now he was simply glad to be flying a plane out of that sector, heading for England. With a bit of luck, they should be there in just four hours.
* * * * * * * *
Staverton sat alone in his office, chewing over the events of the past hour in Churchill’s Downing Street bunker.
When the PM’s private secretary had rung, ordering him to get over to No. 10 straight away, his immediate thoughts were for the Rostock raid. He knew Fleming had pulled it off; he had received the signal along with the supplementary message from Bowman that the Komet was capable of air-to-ground ops as well. And, God knows, that had given him enough cause for concern.
This gave him a great deal more.
Churchill called the special cabinet advisers together whenever there was a crisis. While the career soldiers on the General Staff talked tactics, Staverton and his two counterparts came up with unconventional answers to unconventional situations.
Except crisis wasn’t the word, Staverton thought.
A man was being brought to London from Pilzen, western Czechoslovakia. An Englishman, a traitor, with a story - and documentary evidence - that outlined a Soviet plan to launch an attack on all three fronts in eleven days’ time. They would be in Paris in three weeks and the Channel ports perhaps three after that. And no one knew why.
Until Herries and the documents arrived they were only dealing with a few facts. The most important was that they had the name of the man who was co-ordinating the front-wide assault. Staverton had heard of Shaposhnikov, but he
wasn’t much more than a name. The AVM’s opposite number on the cabinet advisory team had become terribly excited the moment it had been mentioned. So the Kremlin was bringing Shaposhnikov, the arch-strategist, more or less out of retirement for this one. There had to be very special reasons for that.
The marshal’s right-hand men were less well known in intelligence circles. A quick trawl of the text by General Styles’ staff in Czechoslovakia had highlighted three additional key players. General Vorontin would lead the 2nd Belorussian Front to the far north, General Badunov would head up the 1st Belorussian in the centre and General Nerchenko the 2nd Ukrainian to the far south. Shaposhnikov was going to take personal charge of the 1st Ukrainian. But what of the existing front commanders, Marshals Rokossovsky, Zhukov and Konev?
The plans appeared to have been drafted by Shaposhnikov; they were certainly signed by him. They pinpointed where Shaposhnikov would establish his HQ. In addition to leading the 1st Ukrainian’s thrust, he would personally direct the entire six hundred-mile front from a place in western Czechoslovakia called Branodz. That also gave them something to play with, though not much.
“Archangel.” He realized he had said the word aloud, lingering over each syllable. There was irony. The Rus
sians were calling their operation after a semi-deity which had officially ceased to exist almost thirty years before.
There was one further possibility: that it was not the product of the Soviet High Command at all, but of a rebellious faction within the Red Army operating beyond its control. The theory dovetailed neatly with the fact that the three existing marshals at the front appeared not to be part of the plan. But where did that leave them? Should Stalin be informed, or was he the architect? Would a tip-off to the Soviet leader merely precipitate the advance of their tanks? And Heaven knew, Staverton thought, there was little that the battle-weary Allied troops could do to stop them, even with eleven days’ warning.
In the end, everything hinged on Shaposhnikov. Stalin’s Chief of General Staff would trigger Archangel from the front. Churchill wanted to know everything about the man and, when they next convened, an idea of how to stop him.
To Staverton, sitting at his desk under the dimmed electric lighting of the Bunker, it was a bad dream. His sleep-starved mind wandered to the man who had first supplied the information. The report said that he was an Englishman serving in the Wehrmacht - no, the SS. How could they trust intelligence from such a source?
But those who had seen the Archangel documents believed it. And, more to the point, the Prime Minister believed it too. Churchill had long said it was almost inevitable that the Russians would turn their attentions to the West. That the Yalta Agreement was just another piece of paper.
* * * * * * * *
As soon as they entered the sitting room they paused briefly, relishing the warmth of the fire over which they would soon toast the bread kept back for her by the village baker. Then Penny went through to the kitchen to prepare the plates for tea.
