Hitler's Angel

by William Osborne

  “What do you think?”

  “Incredible, Major. Just incredible. Flying this plane is just as you promised it would be, but more so.” Heydrich was breathless in his enthusiasm. “I thank you for the honour.”

  “The honour is the Luftwaffe's, sir, that you should be one of the first to fly the 190.”

  “How many do you have now?”

  “The first six were delivered this week. Another twelve by the end of the month. Once we have evaluated them, full production will commence.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  Heydrich pulled off his flying helmet and ran his hand through his cropped hair. He was nearly two metres tall, with fleshy lips and cold grey eyes. At the age of thirty-seven, he was already head of the RSD – the Reich Security Service – and the most feared man in Germany. He had the power to make any person disappear without trace.

  He took a long swig of water from the metal canteen the major handed to him.

  “There is something else I would like to show you, sir, if you have time. It seems as though our factories have something new and exciting for us to test almost every week.”

  Heydrich nodded. “I always have time when it comes to new planes.”

  They walked back across the airfield towards the line of camouflaged hangars, but just as they reached the first of them, Heydrich's car, a black Mercedes limousine, sped towards them. It came to a sharp halt, and Heydrich's driver jumped out and ran across to them, leaving the engine running.

  “Urgent message for you from the Führer, sir.”

  Heydrich sliced open the telex message and read its contents. He frowned. “You must excuse me, Major. I am required immediately at the Berghof.”

  “I understand. Perhaps I can be of assistance? Please follow me.”

  Heydrich waved his driver away and followed the major into the nearest hangar. In the middle of it stood a helicopter.

  “This is a Flettner Kolibri,” the major said, with obvious pride. “She's the latest model of the Hummingbird, sir. We're testing her for the Kriegsmarine. She's ten times more manoeuvrable than any of our planes. She can land on a Reichmark.”

  Heydrich stared. In this he could be at Hitler's mountain home in less than thirty minutes. How impressive that would seem. The Führer sends for him and he appears almost instantly, like an eagle swooping down from the sky.

  “Have your men call the Führer's security control at the Berghof. Tell them to expect us. It wouldn't do for me to be shot down, would it?”

  Ten minutes later, Heydrich was sitting in the open cockpit beside the pilot, the rotors spooling above them. The helicopter lifted off, rising straight up into the air. It hovered there for a moment, like its namesake, then wheeled about and headed south, slowly climbing into the sky.

  Heydrich looked down at Munich. Through his goggles he could just make out, to the north of the city, the concentration camp the SS had built near the town of Dachau. Then it faded from view and he could see the new Autobahns to the south, grey ribbons heading in all directions. Truly, he thought, there was nothing the Reich could not achieve.

  CHAPTER 16

  SO IT BEGINS

  It was dark by the time Leni had finished drying out the contents of their packs, checking then re-stowing them. The only damage had been to some of their German food rations. She had thrown them away and instead made soup with some Erbswurst pellets, mixing the resulting broth with a tin of beef in gravy. She gave the pot a stir. It didn't smell too bad.

  The sudden sharp snap of a fallen tree branch sent Leni diving away from the small campfire, snatching up the pistol lying beside her pack. She froze and gave a singlenote whistle. A moment later it was answered by a three-note response. Otto was back.

  By the time she'd poured the soup into their enamel mugs, he was squatting down beside her, his face running with perspiration from the muggy summer night air. She handed him a mug.

  “Smells pretty good,” he said, sniffing at it.

  “Yes, well, you can cook next time,” said Leni. Otto was already shovelling the soup into his mouth. “So what did you find?”

  Otto stopped shovelling for a moment. “Good news. The walls are low enough to climb and the nuns have gone to bed.” MacPherson had given them precise instructions regarding the convent's routine, and it seemed the nuns were following it to the letter. “It's just a short run from the main building to the jetty. You'll easily make your way there in the dark.”

  Leni nodded, relieved. “What about other people on the island?”

  “There are a few villas and a small hotel further along, just as MacPherson said, but I've seen no one around.” Otto finished his soup and held out his mug for more. “The only problem is the rope.”

  “You think all I've been doing is the laundry and the cooking while you've been off snooping around?”

  “You've thought of something?”

  “Of course I have,” said Leni, a little exasperated. She spread out MacPherson's map of the convent, the flames from the small fire giving them enough light to study it. “Here's the laundry room. If I can get two or three sheets from it, I can cut them up and make a rope.”

  “Good idea,” acknowledged Otto. “I was thinking of something similar myself.”

  “Oh, really,” said Leni, arching an eyebrow.

  “Yes, but maybe it's a bit risky spending too much time there, on the ground floor.”

  “That's why I'm going to make the rope here, in this little store cupboard on the same landing as the girl.” Leni pointed to it on the map.

  “It's going to take you a while,” Otto said. He looked at his watch. “I think we should go now.”

  Leni knew he was right. She checked her watch. It was just after ten o'clock. The moon was coming up. It was half full, giving a good light and saving their torches.

  They quickly made their way through the trees to the walled vegetable garden at the north of the convent. Leni took off her pack.

  “Ready?” asked Otto.

  Leni nodded, swallowing. “I feel sick,” she said.

  “Me, too,” said Otto. “I think it's your cooking.”

  Leni smiled tightly and took some deep breaths.

  “I'll be waiting at the jetty,” Otto went on. “We have to be off the island by three o'clock at the latest. First light is at four.” He looked at the fluorescent hands of his watch. “I have ten oh seven.”

  Leni looked at her watch. “Check.” She stood there for a moment. “Look, if there's a problem, I don't want you to . . . come and get me. Just make a run for it.”

  “There won't be a problem,” he said firmly.

  “But if there is . . .”

  Otto answered by stepping towards her. For a moment Leni thought he was going to hug her, but he just laced his fingers, cupping his hands to give her a bunk-up.

  “You'll be fine,” he said.

  She stepped on to his hands and he boosted her up the side of the wall. She swung her legs over the top and landed heavily on the other side, feeling grateful now for the hours of practice on the dreaded wall at Wanborough Manor. Her pack landed next to her with a thud.

  “Three o'clock,” she heard Otto hiss.

  *

  Otto listened to Leni's fading footsteps on the gravel. When he could no longer hear them, he struck out down the path by the vegetable garden wall. Then he skirted the low walls of the main building and slipped past the gates, which were closed for the night but not, Otto noted, locked. The island's isolation clearly afforded enough security – or so the nuns must have thought. A paved path wide enough for a cart led in an almost-straight line through more woodland to the jetty.

  There was no one about, just the sound of crickets in the short grass and an occasional bat flitting above him. Somewhere a dog barked. The jetty loomed ahead of him, stretching out into the lake. Fishing boats and launches were tied up along both sides. They scraped gently against each other, their cork fenders groaning quietly. The hotel at the water's e
dge was full of lights and the sound of music, but it was some way from the jetty.

  Otto heard Admiral MacPherson's words in his ear as he stole along, checking each boat: “You can't miss it, Otto, it's a twenty-five-foot launch, blue hull with white superstructure. Good for thirty knots, should get you back to Stock in twenty minutes.”

  There it was. A small pennant with the Benedictine symbol was flying from a short flag post on the stern.

  Otto jumped on board and made his way forward to the covered cockpit. There was a wooden wheel and beside it the red starter button for the engine, together with the throttle lever and forward and reverse gear stick. He ran his fingers over the chrome fuel, temperature and pressure gauges. A compass was mounted in front of the wheel. Only the key to the ignition was missing.

  Otto set down his pack and burrowed inside it, removing a small leather case. He opened it out and selected a skeleton key from one of a dozen. He tried it in the lock, but it wouldn't fit, so he selected another and tried again. At least picking the ignition lock would give him something to do while he waited.

  CHAPTER 17

  LENI INSIDE

  Leni made it to the main building in a few minutes. She squatted down in the shadows, catching her breath, waiting for her heart to slow and listening all the while. But there was not a sound.

  She stole along the west side of the building until she located the window of the girl's room on the fourth floor. She took off her pack and opened it, removing a small canvas holdall she had prepared earlier. It held all the equipment she would need. Then she took out the grey novice's robe and pulled it over her own clothes. It was still a bit damp and smelt of the wood-smoke. She tied it around her waist with a thick cord and wondered how anyone managed to wear such a thing all day during the summer.

  She closed the pack and stashed it against the wall, directly underneath the girl's window. Then she turned and made her way back the way she had come, keeping close to the wall, her eyesight now well adjusted to the gloom. When she reached the north-east side of the building she found that the door to the kitchen was locked. She would have to go in through the main door of the chapel, which she had been told was never locked.

  It was at that moment that she saw the small window to the larder was open. It had a thin mesh screen over it to keep out the flies and mosquitoes. Leni drew her knife and neatly cut the screen away. Then she pulled herself up and through the window.

  Once inside she hurried into the kitchen. The place was quiet and immaculately tidy. Rows of pots and pans hung around the wall on hooks, and the long oak table was scrubbed clean.

  It was a short walk down a stone corridor to the laundry. There Leni quickly found a pile of freshly laundered sheets, folded but waiting to be ironed and starched. She grabbed four.

  Ten minutes later she was padding silently down another stone corridor on the third floor of the building in her socks. She held her shoes in one hand, the small canvas holdall in the other and the sheets tucked under the same arm. She halted at the end of the corridor, as she had on the first two floors, and listened. Still nothing. She took the staircase on the right-hand side. The convent was a warren. For a moment or two she wondered if she was going in the right direction and felt a flash of panic, then she pushed the thought aside and kept going. The stone floor was cold through her socks. As she reached the top of the stairs, a blinding white light snapped on.

  “Who is that? And why are you not in your room?” The woman's voice was hard, indignant, the torch beam flashing along the walls and floor, seeking her out.

  Leni turned tail and fled back down the stairs. She heard the clatter of shoes on the stones behind her.

  “Come back at once!” the woman ordered.

  Leni reached the bottom of the staircase and looked about frantically. In the gloom she could just make out a wooden door set into the wall opposite. She dashed across and pulled it open. It was a tiny cupboard, filled with a collection of mops and pails. As the torch beam cut through the darkness behind her, she managed to squeeze inside and pull the door shut. Through a crack in the door's panels she saw the torch flashing up and down the empty corridor. She held her breath, wedged her shoes under her left arm then used her right hand to slide her knife out from the sheath strapped to her leg. Her hand was shaking so badly she struggled to grip it. She sucked in her breath and held it. Would she actually kill a nun? Or anyone, for that matter? She fought to suppress the scream that threatened to burst from her mouth. Then the footsteps receded down the corridor and she remembered to breathe again, gasping for air.

  She sat inside the cupboard for five full minutes, then gingerly opened the door and stepped out. The icy stone floor was now pleasantly cooling. Her whole body was burning and sweat was running down her back. She ran back up the staircase, as silent as a ghost.

  She found the store room on the fourth floor just where the map had positioned it. She stepped inside the small windowless space and for the next twenty minutes or so, using her knife, carefully shredded the bed sheets into long strips that she knotted together. It seemed to take forever and by the time she'd finished she was perspiring even more, but when the convent's clock struck midnight she was ready. She slung the home-made rope over her shoulder and stepped into the corridor. As she passed each door she checked the small wooden nameplate beside it, painted in simple Gothic script with the name of the occupant: Sister Ellen, Sister Agnes, Sister Rosa . . . At last she found what she was looking for.

  Outside the door at the end, the name plate was blank. The girl with no name.

  Leni pressed her ear to the door and listened. She couldn't hear anything through the five centimetres of oak. Perhaps there was no one inside after all. Perhaps this whole thing was a wild goose chase. Perhaps she could stop now and just run back to Otto and go home.

  She knew that wasn't an option. She eased the iron door-ring anti-clockwise, and felt the latch lift on the inside. She stepped in.

  It was a small narrow cell. There was a mullioned window at the end, a table and chair beneath it. A small wardrobe was on the right and a single cot bed on the left.

  Asleep in the bed was a young girl. Angelika. She lay on her back, her brown hair splayed out around her head. She had broad regular features with full cheeks. Leni knew she was nine, but she looked younger as she slept.

  Leni shivered. The sweat was now clammy under her clothes. But it wasn't just that, she realised. It was the room itself, so cold and spartan, that made her shiver. There was nothing to suggest it was a little girl's room – no teddy or dolls, no toys, no colourful pictures on the wall like in Leni's old bedroom in Vienna. She'd even had her own gramophone player. Here, there were just a few prayer books on the table beneath the window.

  Leni was about to gently wake the girl when she heard footsteps in the corridor. She stood absolutely still, listening. The footsteps came closer and closer and closer. Then they stopped. Right outside the door.

  Leni threw herself under the bed, pushing aside a chamber pot, just as the door opened and a torch beam cut through the darkness. Leni squeezed herself against the wall under the bed and watched a pair of black shoes march across the room and stop directly in front of her face. The bedsprings creaked as the nun shook the sleeping girl roughly.

  “You may fool the others, young lady, but you don't fool me, I know you're not really asleep!” It was the same nun who had chased after Leni, her voice harsh and cross.

  The girl sat up sleepily. “I don't understand, Sister Margareta.” She spoke with a soft Bavarian accent. “What are you talking about?”

  “I'm talking about little girls sneaking around after lights out. In the kitchens again, weren't you, you greedy little pig!”

  “No, I wasn't, I swear to God.”

  “How dare you take the Lord's name in vain? A whole bottle of milk, emptied just like that.” She was filled with righteous indignation.

  Leni's mind was racing, on the edge of panic. She had to do something, and fast.
Before Sister Margareta ruined everything.

  “I think the Mother Superior should hear about this . . .”

  Oh, no . . . she wasn't going to march her downstairs now, was she?

  “Please, I haven't done anything wrong.” The girl was pleading now.

  “Oh, spare me your lies! And no breakfast for you. No breakfast for little thieves. Do you hear me?”

  As quietly as she could, Leni put her hand into her holdall and found the metal flask. She unscrewed the top and carefully poured some of the clear liquid inside on to a thick gauze pad. It was ether mixed with chloroform.

  “May the Lord forgive your wickedness. Come along now!” The nun's feet suddenly stopped moving. “What's that strange smell?”

  Leni made her move, sliding out of the bed in one fluid movement.

  Sister Margareta stared down at her in utter shock. “What mischief is this?” she gasped.

  Leni leapt to her feet and threw herself against the nun, slamming her against the opposite wall. At the same time, she clamped the drug-soaked pad over her nose and mouth.

  Sister Margareta was short and slight, not much bigger than Leni and certainly not as strong. The nun struggled, trying to pull the pad away, but within twenty seconds she slid to the ground unconscious. Leni rushed to the door, closing it carefully. Then she snapped off Sister Margareta's torch, plunging the room back into semidarkness.

  Angelika had shrunk back into the corner of the bed, her arms around her knees. She had gone very pale, and her breathing was shallow. But she hadn't screamed. That was good. Leni put her finger to her lips, and the girl nodded.

  “Please don't scream, Angelika,” Leni whispered.

  Angelika stared. “How do you know my name?” she whispered back.

  “I'll explain everything in a minute, but first I have to fix Sister Margareta.”

  Leni took a moment to think. Everything she was doing was new to her and no amount of training could help. She made a short list in her head: nun, rope, escape. Then she took out her knife, lifted the home-made rope over her head and dropped it on the floor. She found one end of it and cut off a few short lengths.