Faked Passports gs-3

by Dennis Wheatley

  On Friday the 21st, the news was by no means so good for he two Englishmen and they had to repress their feelings to the best of their ability as Magda recounted, with a glee that she did got attempt to conceal, the results of Hitler's releasing one of its much vaunted secret weapons, the magnetic mine.

  Apparently the campaign had been launched the previous week end and twenty five ships were already reported to have fallen victims to the new weapon. That the majority of them where neutrals did not seem to cause Magda any concern, since like many Germans her theory of warfare was, `all who are not with us are against us'. In secret Gregory had a certain sympathy for her attitude as it was entirely owing to his own complete unscrupulousness against his enemies that he had survived to the age of thirty nine.

  That Friday Magda also brought news that Himmler had explained the Munich bomb plot. Georg Elser, a thirty six ear old workman, had been arrested and had confessed to having planted the bomb’ at the order of Otto Strasser, a former associate of Hitler's who had turned against him and was now said to be directing the anti Nazi Black Front from Paris. According to Himmler the British Secret Service was also involved and two of its members, Best and Stevens, had been arrested on the Dutch frontier trying to come into Germany on November the 9th.

  As they were said to be attempting to come into Germany the day after the bomb had exploded this hardly made sense. But the more intelligent Germans had long since given up trying to make sense out of the so often contradictory statements of the Nazi leaders who were obviously using all the influence they had to sway the Führer and the German people in favour of their individual policies.

  By the middle of this the third week after the abortive Putsch Gregory was beginning to get restive. He pointed out that, grateful as he and Charlton were to von Lutz for concealing them, they could not remain there indefinitely. Every day and every night of his convalescence he had spent hours of misery wondering what had become of Erika. With iron control he had curbed his impatience to be off to Berlin in search of news of her until he should he really fit to face hardships and danger again. Now he grudged every further hour's delay. Freddie, too, had remained inactive only through necessity. The thought that if he could get into Holland he would be able to see Angela and patch up his quarrel with her made him discount the difficulties and perils of such a journey. Only on account of Gregory's state had he refrained from urging an attempt to get out of German earlier. Neither disclosed to the other his special reason for being so desperately anxious to set off, but once the subject was broached it was clear that both were in favour of starting at the earliest possible moment.

  Von Lutz declared that he intended to stay where he was until the two Nazis had become tired of sitting doing nothing in his house, when he would be able to move to it and remain in hiding in more comfortable quarters; but he expressed his willingness to aid the two Englishmen by every means in his power.

  The question was raised and settled on the morning of Sunday, the 6th, and when Magda came to the cottage that afternoon von Lutz discussed the matter with her; upon which it was agreed that she should come to the cottage again that night, after the two Nazis had gone to bed, bringing with her a complete outfit of the Baron's civilian clothes for Charlton, a civilian overcoat for Gregory and a small stock of tinned good, from a store that had been laid in before the war to serve as iron rations until the fugitives got well away from the district.

  The wintry daylight was already fading by the time Magda left and darkness fell soon after, but they knew that they had to wait for hours yet before it would be safe for her to leave the house with the things she was to bring and make her way back to them by the forest path. Von Lutz drew a rough map of the surrounding country as a guide for them in the first part of their flight but there were no other preparations they could make, and now that they were keyed up to start the time seemed to hang interminably. At last, shortly before midnight, Magda arrived, but she carried no bundle and one glance was enough to show that she was in a state of great distress.

  Her father questioned her anxiously but she only stared at him, wild eyed and speechless. Gregory took her by the arm and shook her. Suddenly she burst into tears and between her sobs the whole sordid story came out. One of the Nazis. a brawny young man named Carl Dietrich, had taken a fancy to her immediately on his arrival at the house and had been paying her the most unwelcome attentions ever since. These had led up to violent scenes in which he had demanded to know how she, the daughter of a traitor colonel, dared to put on airs with a member of the Black Guards, Hitler's chosen legion, picked for their strength and fitness. whom any German girl should be proud to sleep with. She had not told her father this before, for fear of what he might do, but recently, with no one in the house o whom she could turn for protection, her situation had become desperate: on several occasions during the past week Dietrich had tried to get into her room.

  That night he had smashed the lock on the door and forced his way in. Contrary to his expectations, he had not found Magda in bed, but busy packing up the parcel of clothes she meant to bring to the cottage.

  For a moment it had seemed that he guessed the purpose of her preparations although she had swiftly assured him that the parcel was intended for a Brandenburg charity organization.

  But she had felt it so vital to her father's safety that the Nazi's mind should be immediately and completely diverted from the question of the clothes that instead of calling her mother and the servants to assist her to get him out of her room she had begged him to be quiet so as not to wake them. That was enough to turn his thoughts to his original purpose in breaking in on her and to convince him that her resistance so far had only been feigned. With an ear to ear grin he had begun to unbuckle his belt and she had forced herself to allow him to make love to her. After he left her she had not dared to bring the clothes since, if he remembered about them, she would have to produce them the following day and ' let him see her dispatch them to Brandenburg.

  As he listened von Lutz went white with rage and his hands began to tremble. Immediately Magda had finished sobbing out her tale he declared his intention of going up to the house there and then to drag the Nazi from his bed and shoot him.

  Gregory, Charlton and, above all, Magda endeavoured to dissuade him from this step which would almost inevitably cost him his own life, but the thought that his daughter had been seduced, against her will, by one of these blackguards made the Prussian nobleman furiously reject any counsel of caution.

  It had taken the best part of twenty minutes to piece together Magda's half incoherent ramblings and get the full story from her. For another quarter of an hour they stood there in the kitchen sitting room, wrangling together and trying to turn her outraged father from his purpose, but at last, seeing that the Baron was determined on vengeance, Gregory said with a wry grin

  "All right; since you're absolutely set on it Charlton and I will go with you and we'll settle the two of them. No man who wears the uniform of a Nazi Storm Trooper is fit to live. You'll then have at least some chance of getting away with us. They probably only have to report to their boss in Brandenburg once a week and if we're lucky we'll have several days' start before it's known that your unwelcome guests have been eliminated."

  In spite of Magda's renewed pleading they began to make their preparations. The Baron had his automatic and plenty of ammunition for it; Freddie had the ‘old fashioned revolver with which von Lutz had furnished him on their first day in the woods together while Gregory was still delirious. In order that

  They might put up a good fight if their hiding place were discovered, and they had to resist an attack, four sporting guns had also been smuggled to it from the manor house by Hans. Gregory selected one of these and stuffed his pockets full of cartridges.

  "Ready?" asked von Lutz impatiently.

  The other two nodded, and shaking hands with Hans Foldar and his wife they thanked them most heartily for all that they had done for them. With a brief glance at Magda
, who was now weeping on Frau Folder’s ample bosom, the Baron threw open the cottage door.

  The moon, which was at full that night was hidden by dense banks of cloud so it was dark outside and he stood clearly outlined against the light within. As he moved towards the open doorway Gregory's quick ears caught the scraping of feet on the garden path. Temporarily blinded by the bright light in the cottage he could see nothing out there in the black night but felt a sudden apprehension.

  Had Carl Dietrich, after all guessed the real use to which the clothes Magda was packing up were to be put? Had he, decided that there was plenty of time to take the girl first and catch her father afterwards? Had he not gone to bed as she supposed, but roused his companion, lain in wait and followed? her out through the woods? Were the two Nazi Storm Troopers standing there at the bottom of the path, hidden by the darkness, with their automatics already drawn?

  Next second he knew. A guttural voice rapped out:, "Hands up, Herr Oberst Baron You are our prisoner."

  Chapter V

  Death in the Forest

  IT was Gregory who gained thirty seconds' breathing space for his friends. He had been carrying his shot gun waist high, at the ready; without an instant's hesitation he loosed off both barrels into the darkness.

  The double bang sounded like a thunder clap as its echo rolled across the still countryside and the bright flash lit the scene as vividly as a streak of lightning. There were not only the two Storm Troopers whom they expected to see a dozen yards away, but a whole group bunched up round the garden gate; dark figures caught by the flash in the act of drawing their guns as they ran forward.

  Had von Lutz fired his automatic, or Charlton the old revolver, it was unlikely, since neither of them could see their target, that their bullets would have hit more than one or, at most, two of the oncoming group. But the wide spread of the shot from Gregory's double barrelled fowling piece caused absolute havoc.

  Cries, curses, groans rent the night as the tiny pellets zipped into the faces and limbs of the Nazis like the blows from a hundred whips, causing them to reel about in utter confusion.

  Within a second of having fired Gregory was back inside the cottage. Von Lutz and Charlton tumbled in beside him and the three of them swung to the heavy door.

  "Mein Gott! There are ten or a dozen of them “gasped the Baron. "And I thought there were only two "

  "Directly Dietrich smelt a rat he must have telephoned for reinforcements from Branderburg," said Gregory, "but they've got out here mighty quickly."

  "Dornitz is much nearer only three miles away and he could have got them from the local Nazi headquarters there." "They came in a motor truck," added Freddie. "I saw it by the flash of the shot gun. It's parked down the road about forty cards away."

  As he spoke bullets began to thud into the wood of the cottage door. One of the Nazis was spraying it with a sub machinegun which kicked up a hellish clatter. Gregory and von Lutz jumped back towards the fireplace while Freddie sprang in the other direction.

  "Keep away from that window'. " yelled Gregory; and just as Charlton ducked the hidden glass was shattered by a burst of fire from automatic pistols, the bullets ripping through the curtains.

  Magda was standing, white faced but upright, in a corner. Frau Foldar was crouching in a chair near her, weeping into her apron. She knew only too well that having hidden her master now meant certain death for her husband and herself.

  "Where's Hans?" asked von Lutz suddenly.

  "He- he ran out of the back door just-just after Herr Sallust fired," sobbed the distraught wife.

  "We'd best try and get out that way, too," cried Gregory above the din, and grabbing Magda by the arm he pulled her down beside him so that they could crawl along the floor under the level of the window through which bullets were still streaming. Charlton and the Colonel seized Frau Foldar and between them dragged her after the others.

  Gasping with relief they drew themselves upright at the far end of the room and staggered out into the tiny passage. The back door of the cottage stood open, just as Hans had left it in his flight. The passage, which barely held them all was unlit, to from it they could make out faintly the sky line of the woods and the trunks of the nearest tees.

  "Let me go first," said Gregory, thrusting Magda aside and stepping towards the open. door, "and for God's sake go quietly! "

  Suddenly a flash stabbed the outer darkness and Magda gave a strangled cry. One of the S.S. men had already come round to the back of the cottage and had fired from behind a tree. His bullet had missed Gregory by a fraction of an inch and had caught Magda in the neck. As she fell her father fired over her shoulder at the flash of the Nazi's pistol. He had pressed down his trigger and was emptying the whole contents of his automatic into the open doorway.

  Gregory and Charlton had flung themselves flat, dragging Frau Foldar with them. Magda, choking blood, had slipped down among them, so von Lutz alone remained a target for the Nazi's fire. One bullet whipped through the skirt of his greatcoat, another tore the epaulette on his shoulder, but his escape was miraculous as the burst of shots thudded into the woodwork about him, and a sudden wavering cry from outside, in the dead silence that followed the burst, told that he had got his man.

  Charlton began to drag Magda back into the kitchen sitting room but Gregory edged forward again towards the back door. As he did so a tommy gun opened, sending a stream of lead over his head. Other Nazis had now come round to the back of the cottage and escape that way was impossible.

  Turning, he found von Lutz crouching beside him on the floor. The Baron raised his automatic again, fired twice at the flash of the sub machine gun, then with his free hand swung to the door. Springing up, Gregory secured it by thrusting the thick wooden bar home into its socket.

  Back in the kitchen they found Frau Foldar trying to staunch Magda's wound while Freddie stood helplessly beside her; but the old woman's efforts were of no avail. The bullet had cut Magda's jugular vein; blood poured from it like a river, drenching her clothes and forming great pools upon the floor. She was already dead, having succumbed within thirty seconds of the bullet's hitting her.

  Covering her face, the others began a rapid consultation. "We're trapped! " said Gregory. "No hope of getting alive out of this place either way."

  "We will some of these swine to hell send before they get us, though," muttered the Baron grimly.

  "If we've got to die anyway, wouldn't it be best to surrender?" asked Charlton.'

  "What?" exclaimed van Lutz in astonishment; then he added more quietly: "Of course, you can your hand throw in if you wish but I'll first see them in Hell."

  "I wasn't thinking of myself," said Freddie, "but of Frau Foldar. If we let them shoot this place to bits she'll probably be killed too, whereas by giving ourselves up we might at least save her life."

  The colonel shrugged. "I apologize. But you shall take my word that nothing we can do will make them to spare her, since she shelter us here."

  "That's so." Gregory gave a grim chuckle. "You don't know these Nazis, Freddie. my boy. They'd butcher a twelve year old child for having given a drink of water to a blind man if he had ever raised a finger against Hitler. Come on, let's get the other shot guns and see if we can't dust up some of these embryo Himmler’s before they rush the place."

  For the past two minutes there had been a lull in the firing, only an occasional bullet whacking through the curtains of the Window or splintering the woodwork of the door. The cottage consisted of only two rooms and the loft above which had been used by the three fugitives during the past fortnight.

  "You two stay here and I'll take the bedroom in case some of them try to get in through the window there," said von Lutz, and he left the others abruptly.

  There was only one window in each room and both fronted on the lane; so Gregory felt that they might be able to hold the place for some time if they were careful not to expose themselves unnecessarily, although he knew that sooner or later there could be only one end to su
ch an uneven combat.

  "We must try to draw their fire," he said to Freddie. "We'll use that fur cap that Hans left behind. Put it on the end of that stick and thrust it up under the curtains when I give the word. It will part them just enough to show a streak of light and they'll see the cap outlined against it."

  Charlton grabbed the cap and stick and together they crawled across the floor. Gregory put his hand up and felt along he lower part of the window. The Nazis' bullets had shattered he glass leaving only the empty frame. Very cautiously he poked his shot gun out of one corner and warily raised his head until he could see along the barrel; then he whispered: `Ready now?"

  Still kneeling on the floor Freddie thrust up the big fur cap end parted the curtains a little where they met across the centre of the window. Instantly there was a burst of fire and a hail of shots smacked into the cap, knocking the stick on which it was supported out of his hands.

  Gregory had marked the nearest flashes and loosed off both barrels of his gun, hoping for a double. A he ducked back howls of pain told him that some of his pellets had found a resting place in human flesh.

  A second later the Nazis brought a sub machine gun into fiction. There was a deafening roar as it sent a stream of lead through the empty window frame; cutting one of the curtains nearly in half so that the torn part sagged down disclosing a large triangle of the lighted room. With extraordinary daring Freddie raised himself until the bullets were zipping only a few

  inches above his head; then, aiming carefully at the perfect target presented by the flame spitting flame of the gun, he let the gunner have two rounds from his revolver. There was a loud cry and the firing ceased.

  "Well done! Well done I" murmured Gregory. "But for God's sake don't try any more of those tricks or you'll get yourself shot to pieces."