The Bells of Hell

by Michael Kurland

  The entrance hall was a vast rectangle, with a wide staircase on the left side at the far end. On the right were a series of heavy-looking oak doors, one triple-wide and the others normal size except for two that looked unusually narrow, or perhaps it was a trick of the perspective. High on the walls on both sides leading to the staircase were the heads of dead animals: stags with wide antlers, stags with short pointed antlers, wolves, wild boar, and what Geoffrey thought was an ibex, interspersed with banners bearing a variety of coats of arms. From the high ceiling, flanking the staircase, hung a pair of long red streamers with a large white swastika centered in each.

  A man in a flawlessly pressed SS uniform covered with silver braid came scurrying into the entrance hall from one of the normal-size doors. ‘My apologies, your royal highness,’ he said, stopping in front of the Duke and giving the sort of forward nod that can pass as a bow if you’re in uniform. ‘I should have been outside to greet you. I was held up by a minor emergency among the staff. Obergruppenführer Rudolf Hess at your service, your royal highness. The Reichskanzler has been delayed by a previously scheduled meeting with the American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife. They are good friends of the Reich. He will be flying in first thing in the morning. There is a small airfield about two kilometers from here. Your rooms are ready. I assume you dined on the train, but if you would like a bite to eat before retiring, or perhaps a little schnapps?’

  ‘A small glass of sherry, perhaps,’ said the Duke. ‘In my chambers. And then to bed. It is, what, a bit before eleven? A little early to retire, but it’s been a long day.’

  As they turned to head up the wide staircase a young man with the unmistakable look of a British civil servant from his just wide enough mustache to his impeccable gray suit and old school tie approached and bowed. ‘Your royal highness, Lord Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘Neville Pekes of the Foreign Office at your service. I trust you had a safe and pleasant journey. I arrived last night. They sent me along from the Embassy in Berlin to, ah, offer any advice ah, should any questions arise, don’t y’know.’

  ‘I wondered,’ HRH said.

  ‘Your royal highness?’

  ‘I wondered that the FO was sending me alone into the wilderness without someone holding my hand and providing, as it were, direction. They do not seem to be overly enamored of my judgment in Whitehall.’

  ‘Oh no sir, ah, your royal highness,’ Pekes said, looking honestly shocked. ‘I am not instructed to direct your negotiations or interfere in any way, but only to give you such advice and explanations of the FO’s current policies as you may request. As far as I have been informed, they have the utmost faith in you.’

  ‘Well,’ HRH said. ‘Well. I am pleased to hear that. Pointless to send me over here and then tie my hands.’

  ‘I assure your royal highness that as far as I’m concerned your hands are quite untied,’ Pekes told him.

  ‘Well, well. Very good then. Don’t fancy I’ll need you, but I appreciate the FO sending you along. Good night, Pekes, see you in the morning.’

  ‘Good night, your royal highness.’

  On the way up the wide staircase Geoffrey leaned over to HRH and murmured, ‘A thought, David: Do not say anything to me or anyone in here that you wouldn’t want your mother or Herr Hitler to hear. The walls are certainly impregnated with microphones.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the Duke. ‘Yes, of course.’ And he looked thoughtful as he turned in to his room.

  At about quarter past nine the next morning Geoffrey ambled downstairs to the breakfast room. HRH and Pekes were already there, the Duke sitting in royal solitude at one end of the long table and Pekes at the other end. The Duke’s manservant, whose name, if Geoffrey remembered aright, was Anders, was presumably eating below stairs, or wherever the servants gathered in a German Schloss. There were no Germans in evidence except two servers who stood one on each side of the sideboard and made no attempt to serve. Geoffrey filled his plate with enough ham, eggs, sausage, and what turned out to be chicken livers to last until lunch, and then added a bit in case lunch should be delayed, and went to sit with HRH.

  ‘How did you sleep, your royal highness?’ he asked.

  ‘The bed was too soft,’ the Duke grumped, ‘and there was no night light. I don’t like sleeping in total darkness, I always feel as though someone’s creeping up on me.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare!’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘That’s what I tell them,’ the Duke said, with a small smile. ‘But they creep up anyhow.’

  ‘We’ll get you a reading lamp for tonight,’ Geoffrey told him.

  ‘I don’t like to read so much,’ said HRH, ‘but I do like a night light.’

  Geoffrey was thoughtfully munching on the last bit of ham on his plate and wondering why ham from swine raised in the Black Forest was so much tastier than ham from swine raised in the Home Counties, and had progressed to musing on why calling the animals ‘swine’ rather than ‘pigs’ made it easier to contemplate slaughtering them for their hams, when a deep humming vibrated through the room, rapidly resolving into the sound of an airplane flying low overhead. Judging by the general excitement and the people they could see through the windows rushing about outside, it would seem that Der Führer had arrived. And indeed, some fifteen minutes later a black Mercedes pulled up and Adolf came striding through the front door, a short but commanding figure in the brown uniform of Führer und Reichskanzler, with a swastika armband. On his left breast pocket was the Iron Cross First Class he had been awarded as a corporal in the World War, above some SS badge Geoffrey couldn’t identify. There was no further identification or insignia; Der Führer being Der Führer, none was needed. Six men came through the door behind Hitler, two in military uniform, two in SS black, and two in black leather greatcoats. Geoffrey looked them over thoughtfully. One of them, presumably, was the man he had come here to meet.

  Several recognition signals had been proposed, including a hothouse flower boutonnière, but Lord Geoffrey absolutely refused to wear anything that would ruin the line of his bespoke gray suit. One does not wear a buttonhole except at an event, and meeting Adolf Hitler was not that sort of event. Finally an acceptable alternative had been found: Geoffrey would place a white handkerchief with a thin blue stitching around the edge in his breast pocket, folded so that it went straight across rather than in two peaks as was traditional. This was high fashion in bohemian circles this year, although the suit jackets of his bohemian friends were certainly not of merino wool, exquisitely tailored by a Savile Row clothier whose grandfather had suited their grandfathers. Noblesse, Geoffrey reflected, gets one a better-cut suit.

  HRH, Pekes, Herr Hitler and his various aides closeted themselves in the ballroom almost immediately – the Chancellor could only spare one day for this meeting – and Geoffrey wandered about making himself as visible as possible to the uncloseted Germans without actually flapping his suit jacket at them. The ones he saw showed nothing more than a polite interest in his existence. After a while he went outside and wandered about the grounds, which stretched off into the distance until they merged with the surrounding trees. He got as far as the formal garden which went along one side of the house, separated by a thick hedge from the less formal gardens beyond, and found himself in a deep discussion with the head gardener about just how one managed a topiary giraffe. The talk was proving linguistically interesting because, although his German was excellent, it had not before ventured in the direction of horticulture. He wasn’t even sure that he knew what the terms were in English.

  One of the army officers who had arrived with Hitler strolled over to the far side of the garden. Casually he turned around to stare at something in the middle distance, possibly the cluster of fruit trees – apple, pear? – just coming into leaf on the other side of the bordering hedge. Geoffrey noted that the officer’s hands were clasped behind his back, thumbs locked, with his two pinky fingers extended.

  It took Geoffrey a moment to realize that this was the sign that
he had been watching for. He had thought the extended pinky countersign would be done with the man’s hands clasped in front, a ‘this is the church and this is the steeple’ sort of posture. Perhaps in an attitude of deep introspection. But here it was. Unless, of course, the man made a habit of standing like that and was not actually his contact. Men had ended up hanged by the neck as a result of such coincidences. Thus the necessary extra step of verbal confirmation. He thanked the gardener with a little bow and meandered toward the waiting Wehrmacht officer.

  As he walked the well-graveled path, Geoffrey had a barely-suppressible impulse to begin the conversation with, ‘Hello. I am a British spy. Perhaps you have some military secrets you’d like to sell?’ but he restrained himself. Instead, when he reached the officer he peered over the hedge. ‘Apple trees, I believe,’ he said. ‘Although it’s hard to be sure until they more fully assume their foliage.’

  The officer turned to look at him. ‘Foliage?’

  ‘Leaves and such,’ Geoffrey explained.

  ‘Ah. I wouldn’t know. To me, I’m sorry to admit, a tree is a tree.’

  ‘Your English is excellent,’ Geoffrey said.

  The officer nodded. ‘I studied in your country for a while,’ he said. ‘And I admire your British authors. Jane Austen. Oscar Wilde.’

  There it was, confirmation. Geoffrey completed the ritual. ‘I have always been fond of Heinrich Heine,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, so,’ the officer said. ‘He was, I believe, a Jew.’

  ‘Really? I wouldn’t know.’

  The officer shrugged. ‘No matter. Let us walk.’

  They paced together in silence for a few minutes before the officer said, ‘You are, I believe, Viscount Geoffrey Saboy?’

  ‘We, ah, style it differently,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The title is Viscount McComb. The name is Lord Geoffrey Saboy. The “Lord” is because I am the younger son of a duke, as a viscount I would only rate a “sir”. The traditions are very strict about such things. Ridiculous I know.’

  ‘Not at all,’ the officer told him. ‘Or no more so than here. I, for example am Oberst Altgraf Wilhelm Sigismund Marie von und zu Schenkberg. There are a few other names I could attach, but I never do. What, precisely, I am to do with all these names I do not know. I doubt that they impress those who are not already impressed by my Prussian bearing and air of command.’

  ‘How does one, ah, abbreviate that?’ Geoffrey asked. ‘How are you addressed?’

  ‘Oberst Altgraf von Schenkberg if writing or being overly formal, as when General Keitel wishes to reprimand me. Usually Oberst Von Schenkberg or, for my good friends, Willy.’

  They walked on.

  ‘So,’ Geoffrey said after a minute. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Oberst Von Schenkberg. What am I doing here?’

  Another minute of silence, and then Von Schenkberg asked, ‘You are empowered to speak for your government?’

  ‘For a small and relatively unimportant part of it,’ Geoffrey said, ‘and in this matter only.’

  ‘But … if you agree to something, it will be carried out?’

  Lord Geoffrey considered. ‘It stands a good chance,’ he said. ‘I can guarantee that whatever we speak of will not go beyond those who need to know, and that your identity will be protected. But I’ll have to hear what the quo is before I can assure you that my government can offer a quid. Or should that be the other way around?’

  They stopped walking and Von Schenkberg looked casually around. ‘It is not suspicious in itself that we are talking,’ he said. ‘I am supposedly cultivating you and ascertaining your opinion of the new German Reich. But cultivation is a casual thing, and if we are seen to be too earnestly conversing it might cause one to wonder. And wonder is what we must avoid.’

  ‘If you like,’ Geoffrey offered, ‘I can complain later to HRH about the damn Nazi trying to chat me up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Von Schenkberg said. ‘You could do that. If you could manage it in his royal highness’s bedroom it would be useful.’

  Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah!’

  ‘Or the breakfast room. That would do.’

  ‘Aha! My suspicions are correct.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They sat on a decoratively baroque wrought-iron bench facing a marble statue of a carefully draped woman carrying an ewer on her shoulder and looking pensively at a barn in the middle distance. ‘What I offer you – your government – is information on the strategic thinking of the General Staff and the directives of the Supreme Leader.’

  ‘The which?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Von Schenkberg told him. ‘Last month it was announced in an official broadcast – there was no discussion of this beforehand as far as I know – that all political, military, and economic authority is to be placed in the hands of the Supreme Leader. I have never heard Herr Hitler actually call himself that, but that’s how the broadcast described him.’

  ‘It certainly does simplify things, doesn’t it?’ Geoffrey asked. ‘And “supreme leader” has a sort of ring to it. Who would want to argue with the Supreme Leader?’

  ‘Not a good idea,’ Von Schenkberg agreed. He took a small brush from his pocket and began dusting off his uniform. ‘Permit me to say first, I don’t want to suggest that I offer more than I can deliver. I am Intelligence Adjutant to the OKW, so I know many things, but much in this best of all possible lands of ours remains unpredictable, subject to instant change at the whim of Der Führer, and many high-level decisions do not leak down to a mere colonel. At least not until the operation is well underway.’

  ‘OKW?’ Geoffrey asked.

  ‘Oberkommando der Wehrmacht,’ von Schenkberg said. ‘A brand-new creation of our leader and those around him. It came into existence early last month to put all of the staffs of the various branches of the military under one leadership. You could think of it as a sort of general staff of general staffs.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Geoffrey. ‘And you are an officer in this OKW?’

  ‘If only it were that simple.’ von Schenkberg said. ‘I am the intelligence liaison between the OKH, or Oberkommando des Heeres, the regular army chiefs, and the OKW. Exactly what my function is, or will be, has yet to be determined. We are all on what you might call a shakedown cruise. Time will tell what sort of niche I can create for myself.’

  ‘And you want to pass information on to us?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, there is something I require in return. But putting that aside, I believe that this, ah, regime, these people, are evil and can bring nothing but disaster to my homeland. I believe that this “Thousand Year Reich” will be lucky to last for ten years, and that every year it goes on will bring misery to tens of thousands of people. And anything I can do to shorten its existence is ultimately for the good of my country. Although I will admit many will not see it that way.’

  Geoffrey leaned against the back of the bench and stared off at the mountains – well, tallish hills – in the distance, jutting up over the treetops like the bodies of sleeping giants; there a shoulder, over there a knee. This, he thought, was the test. Was Oberst Altgraf Wilhelm Sigismund Marie von und zu Schenkberg truly so disillusioned with the rulers of his beloved Germany that he would sell them out to the British Secret Service, or was this a ruse to set up a conduit for feeding disinformation to His Majesty’s government? And how could he tell the difference? C would ask for his assessment. Nothing for it but to keep probing and look for inconsistencies. If this is a ruse, the story would be well rehearsed, but on the other hand, even if it was completely sincere, the Oberst would certainly have been giving a lot of thought over just what to say and how to say it. At any rate, Geoffrey thought, he’d listen and almost certainly accept the man’s offer if it were not too unreasonable. After all, it would be someone else who had to determine whether Oberst von Schenkberg’s information was true or false.

  ‘So,’ Geoffrey asked, ‘what is it that you require in exchange for this cornucopia?’


  ‘Nothing for myself. Hastening the demise of this verdammte regime will be sufficient. And besides, the odds of my living more than a year or two if I proceed with this, are, let us say, slight. The Gestapo is not bright, but it is thorough, and it suspects everyone.’

  ‘So, then?’

  ‘I would like you to get three people – a woman and two children – out of the country. Settle them, perhaps, in London. Or the United States of America perhaps.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  Von Schenkberg shook his head. ‘Helena, the Altgräfin, should not – indeed cannot – be moved. She has, ah, an illness – a disease – and requires twenty-four-hour care. She never leaves her room, and attempting to move her from the chateau would be difficult and possibly fatal.’

  ‘How awful,’ Geoffrey said. ‘What sort of disease?’

  Von Schenkberg gave him a look of mingled anger and pain, or so Geoffrey saw it. ‘I’m sorry to ask,’ Geoffrey said, ‘but my superiors will certainly ask me.’

  ‘Yes, of course they will,’ Von Schenkberg said. ‘The illness is probably one called encephalomyeliti disseminata.’

  ‘Probably?’

  Von Schenkberg shrugged. ‘The diagnosis varies from month to month, from doctor to doctor, but that seems to be the consensus at present.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘It is good that I am a wealthy man,’ Von Schenkberg said. ‘Were I not, Helena would certainly have died some years ago.’

  There was a minute of silence, and then Von Schenkberg said, ‘But enough of this, I am distressing you.’

  ‘No,’ Geoffrey said, ‘not at all.’

  ‘Well then, I am distressing me. No, the lady I am asking you to spirit out of Germany is Frau Madeleine Fauth. She is my mistress, and the two children are my own.’