Macrae kept his gun sheathed in its case slung over his shoulder. He had only brought it at Koenig’s insistence and had no intention of using it. It was his old army rifle, a Lee–Enfield 1914 model issued at the outbreak of war to front-line infantry. His weapon had been specially adapted, with telescopic sights and a customised stock to fit his shoulder. That was why he had been allowed to keep it when he left France. His specialised role meant he would remain on the reserves, even when promoted to become a military attaché within the Diplomatic Service.
They had found the stag easily enough in mid-morning and later that day they took twelve-bore shotguns and walked around the state on a vermin hunt, shooting hawk, crows and rabbit. A gamekeeper struggled behind with a bag of the fallen prey.
As they kicked off their boots at the rear of the house, Koenig said, “One of our neighbours will be coming to dinner tonight – Herman Schiller, a colonel like me, armoured division – I want you to meet him. You’ll like him. Old school.”
Before dinner that night, the three men met for a drink in Koenig’s study. He offered whisky or vodka, taking old crystal decanters from a small table and pouring generous measures into matching crystal tumblers. Primrose and Gertrude were upstairs. Colonel Schiller was wearing evening dress, which surprised Macrae. Koenig had told him this was to be an informal weekend.
The colonel was the image of a German officer, ramrod stiff, with a moustache that turned down at the corners of his mouth, and round rimless spectacles perched high on his nose. Macrae guessed he was in his early fifties, old enough to have fought in the war. He was an infantry officer and would have been in his twenties and very much in the front line.
“I wanted you to meet Colonel Schiller because he is of a like mind, and there are many more like him at all levels of the army,” said Koenig. “Less so in the Luftwaffe, because Göring has purged those he considers disloyal, then bribed the rest with new planes and given them the chance to try them out in Spain.”
He sipped his whisky.
“Herman, do you want to begin?” said Koenig.
“I think first we need some reassurance that this will be a private conversation,” said the colonel, staring hard at Macrae.
“You have my reassurance,” said Macrae.
“Ah, but do I?” The colonel raised his glass and drank, all the while keeping his eyes fixed firmly on Macrae. He seemed angry. He pointed at the curtained windows.
“Somewhere out there, miles away, Göring has his schloss. The Reichsmarschall loves hunting and likes showing off to his friends, especially his foreign friends. Do you know one of the people he invites to shoot with him? Your ambassador, Henderson. He is a frequent visitor, and not a bad shot, I am told.”
Macrae was well aware that Sir Nevile Henderson not only spent shooting weekends with Göring, but also accepted invitations to the opera and music evenings. The British ambassador had been photographed recently with Göring at a Mozart festival in Munich. The two had been pictured side by side laughing. Halliday tracked those meetings carefully. Macrae had no doubt that Stewart Menzies, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service in London, was aware of the close relationship between the British ambassador and the man who had assumed the role, if not the title, of Hitler’s deputy.
“I’m sure that is just part of an ambassador’s duties.”
“Duty be damned,” said the colonel, and he stood up, his face flushed with anger. “Henderson thinks Göring is a ‘jolly good chap’, a gentleman who can be trusted.”
“I think you have made your point,” said Koenig.
“And what exactly is the point?” asked Macrae.
“Can we trust you not to repeat to the ambassador what we are going to discuss? Because I have a feeling that Sir Nevile Henderson would go to great lengths to ingratiate himself with Göring and that gang.”
Fair enough, thought Macrae. The ambassador placed the avoidance of war above all other considerations. He saw that as not just an official duty but almost a religious calling. Henderson was a fervent churchgoer, so much so that junior members of staff were expected to join him at Sunday-morning service in the Berliner Dom. It was very likely that Henderson would pass on reports of unease among the senior military to his good friend Göring.
“I quite understand,” said Macrae, and he raised his glass slightly, prompting Koenig to refill. He paused, searching for the right words. He was a soldier, not a diplomat, and those words were hard to find, words that would encourage the confidences that he was sure were forthcoming, without making him party to a betrayal of his own ambassador.
The two men were watching as he sipped his whisky. Finally Macrae said, “I believe we have a shared view of the dangers facing Europe and the wider world if the German leadership continues its current course. And I do not believe those dangers can be averted if the British government continues its current policy of appeasement. I will do nothing to aid that policy – quite the reverse.”
He stopped and reached over for the whisky bottle. The colonel stared at the ceiling for a minute, then nodded at him.
“Very well,” he said. “Let me pose a question: when and where will the British draw the line? When will you make a stand? Hitler pushes forward and you step back; he moves again and you retreat. If this was a chess game, you would be off the board by now.”
“HMG’s view is clear,” said Macrae. “The British government wants to negotiate a territorial arrangement that will satisfy Hitler without leading to war.”
“That is our point,” said Colonel Schiller. “War is coming whatever you do.” He sat forward and stared at Macrae. “Do you realise that plans are being drawn up now, at this very minute, for the invasion of Russia?”
“You surprise me,” said Macrae. “What about Poland?”
“Don’t be naive. Poland is a foregone conclusion.” He paused. “I am sorry. I did not mean to be rude.”
Macrae was cautious. “And after Russia?”
“Oh, you stupid British! Sorry, forgive me, but really! You think you can sit in the mist and rain of that little island and do a deal with Hitler. You think he is going to let you keep your navy and empire while he turns Europe into a racially pure Aryan state. After Russia, he intends to conquer the world! And why not? Who is to stop him?”
“That is surely a gross simplification,” said Macrae.
“Really? Are you sure of that?” said the colonel.
“There are many people in the United Kingdom who are warning of German intentions. Winston Churchill makes the point all the time.”
“Churchill!” snorted the colonel.
Koenig got up, opened the door as if to check whether anyone was listening, closed it and returned to his seat.
“Gentlemen, let us get to the point and not argue about the details,” he said. “The point is if, and I repeat if, there were to be a move against the regime, where would the United Kingdom stand?”
“‘A move’?” said Macrae.
“You want me to spell it out?” said Koenig.
There was a silence.
“If the army removed him,” said the colonel.
“I can hardly speak for the government,” said Macrae, “but I think they would be relieved, as would the rest of Europe.”
“Ah, ‘relieved’. Yes, I am sure. But would you act?” said the colonel.
“In what way?”
“Recognise a military government until we had time to organise elections. That might take a year or two. It would be messy. The Nazis would fight.”
“Are you talking of a civil war?” Macrae could hardly believe he had asked the question.
“No, it would be faster than that,” said Koenig.
“Bloody but quick,” said the colonel. “But very bloody.”
An army coup against Hitler. Halliday had told him there were rumblings in the elite Prussian officers corps and that the men would follow them. But he had not heard anything so specific.
But Halliday had also told him
something else: Himmler was a master of entrapment and would seek to embarrass any envoy deemed hostile. There were many ways, but involvement in an armed resistance to Hitler was most certainly one of them. These two men, Koenig and Schiller, had asked for reassurance. Perhaps he should do the same. Was this conversation being recorded?
He looked around the room and then at his host. Florian Koenig, with his two brothers dead in the war, holding the family estate together while his cadaverous wife clearly sickened for something. No, Koenig could never be part of any Nazi machinations.
“Do you have support for your plans?” Macrae asked.
“We would hardly be having this conversation if we didn’t.”
“And the timing?”
“That is up to you,” said Koenig.
Koenig paced the study, describing the plan, while the colonel kept his eyes fixed on Macrae. Hitler’s next move would be against Czechoslovakia, he said. The Führer would argue for the return of Sudetenland on the grounds that the German-speaking population were being mistreated, a familiar propaganda trick. But the Nazis had a problem. Czechoslovakia had a good standing army and big armament-manufacturing capacity. If Britain drew the line at Czechoslovakia and made clear it would join France in military action to support the Czechs, Hitler would probably try to call their bluff. He would have to. Since assuming power, he had been driven by the political imperative of seizing territory in the name of Lebensraum, the code name for the creation of a new German empire. He had deliberately created the impetus for war and could not now draw back.
The crucial question was whether Britain would make an invasion of Czechoslovakia the red line. Would such an action, in defiance yet again of the Versailles treaty, finally persuade the government in London to abandon its appeasement policy and join France in meeting the threat of further aggression with a pledge to respond with full force of arms? If that happened, Hitler was finished.
It had been a long speech, delivered with passion. When Koenig finished, he and the colonel looked at Macrae. There was nothing meaningful he could say. He was mumbling a few words about the difficulty of responding to such views when Koenig knelt before him and gently took his hand. Such an intimate gesture after the stirring speech left Macrae almost speechless.
“Tell us the truth. It is better we know,” said Koenig.
“The truth is, I don’t know. But I can promise you that what I have heard tonight will be relayed to those in London best placed to make use of the information you have given me.”
“Who are they?” snarled the colonel. He was half drunk and angry.
Koenig put a finger to his lips.
“Gentlemen. Enough. The ladies are waiting.”
There were just six of them for dinner that night. Two other neighbours had cancelled with apologies owing to illness. The colonel’s wife was almost exactly the opposite of Gertrude. She was called Henna, a large florid-faced lady with a loud laugh and two plaited pigtails that fell over a revealing black dress. Her English was not good but she insisted on speaking it, thus slowing the conversation as everyone tried to understand what she was saying or explain to her what they had just said.
Finally Koenig took them through the house to the ballroom at the rear. The semicircular room with glass walls and dome had been built onto the back of the house by his father at the turn of the century, he explained. The death of Queen Victoria at that time had liberated England from the oppressive social conformism of her reign and dancing parties suddenly became fashionable in London. Paris and Berlin quickly followed the new fashion. The stately waltz and foxtrot were swept away to be replaced by fast-moving ragtime dances with risqué names like the Black Bottom. Even more daringly, the tango arrived from Argentina, creating the shocking sight of couples dancing not just cheek to cheek, but thigh to thigh. Dancing schools sprang up in major cities, and across Europe ballrooms were added to stately homes, country houses and hunting lodges. Such additions merely required a well-sprung and polished wooden floor and a small stage for the musicians, although the invention of the gramophone had rendered the latter unnecessary for an evening’s entertainment.
The guests looked around the ballroom in wonder. Curved glass windows encircled the room. Pillars painted in red and white stripes rose to support the domed roof. Hollows had been carved into the pillars to hold candles, which in this case were red in colour and threw a shimmering light up to the glass roof. White candles had been placed at intervals behind the cushioned seating that ran around the room beneath the windows. Where the ballroom abutted the straight line of the house, white panelling had been laid and from this a white tasselled canopy hung over a small circular dais.
The room looked to Primrose less like a ballroom and more like a cross between a fish tank and a gigantic greenhouse that had been decorated for a children’s party.
A waiter appeared with glasses of champagne. Koenig proposed a toast.
“To friendship between our two great countries,” he said.
They clinked glasses and drank. Koenig mounted the stage and raised the lid of a large wooden box. A gramophone was revealed inside. He pulled out a wooden drawer beneath the instrument and took out a handle, which he inserted into the machine and began turning vigorously.
“He’s very proud of that instrument,” said Colonel Schiller, who was swaying back and forth as if on a ship’s deck.
Primrose resisted the temptation to giggle. Their host was trying to operate a gramophone that must have been in use during the last war. His neighbour the colonel was clearly incapable of dancing and would probably fall flat on his face if he tried. The colonel’s wife was beaming at everyone with a demented smile, while Gertrude lay limply on the seating by the window, looking as if she had recently been raised from the grave and wished for nothing more than a swift return to that state.
As for her husband, Primrose looked around and saw him on the far side of the room. He was smiling that thoughtful, interior smile, a smile made for no one but himself. Something had made him happy, thought Primrose. They had been away a long time before dinner, those men, and had joined them all rather drunk. More talk about a bloody war, she supposed.
Koenig finally turned to his guests.
“Sorry about that. This machine belonged to my brother Angelus. He took it with him to the trenches. Very important family treasure. Plays wonderfully well.”
He turned, put the stylus on a record and stepped down to join his guests. The music of Glenn Miller filled the room with a surprisingly rich sound, emanating as it did from a small wooden box. Koenig offered an arm to his wife with a bow. She stood up and he led her gently onto the floor. She was smiling as she stepped into his arms, her feet matching his as they moved in a fast version of the waltz.
He led her into quick turns, whirling around in time to the steady beat of a bass drum behind the rise and fall of the band’s brass section, pausing to hold her, so that both were momentarily frozen in one as if they had stepped into each other; then they broke apart and swirled away. Primrose and the others watched in amazed admiration the acrobatic grace with which they moved. Gertrude had suddenly come to life in her husband’s arms. Their bodies and limbs merged in sinuous flowing movements to the seductive tempo of big-band swing. They moved in a sensuous embrace that suggested an unlikely depth of passion between them.
Gertrude wore an expression of total concentration as she took the lead from Koenig, pressing into him, moving and swaying with him, so that the dance became something more than mere motion to music. He was utterly rapt in her arms, watching her intently as her mouth opened, and even above the music Primrose heard her gasp as he turned her in a tight pirouette.
Macrae glanced at his wife. Primrose was following the dancers’ every move, clearly impressed at the grace and passion that flowed across the floor, and perhaps a little jealous.
Encouraged to believe they could do the same, the remainder of the party rose to their feet. Primrose felt a tap on her shoulder. Colonel Schi
ller was standing behind her. He bowed and clicked his heels. She glanced appealingly at Macrae but saw he was being held in a close embrace by the colonel’s wife, who was moving him around the floor as if propelling a wheeled piece of furniture across the room. Schiller slid his arm around her waist and took her hand. She felt hot whisky-and-wine breath on her cheek. His eyes were glazed. He gripped her waist tightly and tried to guide her in a series of fast turns, with steps that had little relation to the music. His legs became tangled with hers and she felt him gripping her ever more tightly as he lost his balance. She struggled to hold him up while trying to find some form of movement that bore a relationship to the music.
The music suddenly stopped. Everyone paused. Breathing hard, Macrae stepped back from the colonel’s wife and began to thank her. She immediately stepped forward and took his arm, waiting for the music to begin again. Primrose released herself from the colonel and steadied him. Koenig leapt onto the dais, wound the gramophone furiously and selected a new shiny black record.
A waiter appeared with fresh glasses of champagne. Primrose drank her glass gratefully. She was hot, thirsty and desperate to get away from the colonel. He watched her drink.
“You dance very well,” he said. “I’m afraid I really cannot match the music.”
“Oh, you do awfully well,” she said, wondering why people have to lie on such occasions. The music had begun again, an up-tempo jazz version of a popular standard. Koenig shouted above the music.
“Tommy Dorsey band with something jazzy! Something to get us all in the mood.”
“I would rather sit this one out,” said Primrose.
Colonel Schiller was insistent. He liked jazz and wanted to dance. She was swept back onto the floor. Across the room, Primrose saw Macrae being wheeled furiously into a series of turns by the colonel’s wife. She was clasping him close to her and seemed to be trying a cheek-to-cheek version of the tango. He looked desperate.
Gertrude had gone. Koenig was dancing by himself, circling the floor with an imaginary partner in his arms. He seemed utterly absorbed. Schiller suddenly fell with a thump onto the floor. Encouraged by Koenig’s solo performance, he had broken away to perform a series of twirls and had tottered across the room until his feet slipped from under him. His wife had left Macrae to help him. They sat down heavily by the window while she mopped his brow. Koenig came off the floor to pour them all a glass of champagne.
Midnight in Berlin Page 11
