Shadows of War

by Michael Ridpath

  And then suddenly Theo thought of Millie, of her dress wrapping itself around her legs in the wind on the beach at Scheveningen, of her cheek as it turned away from his lips. The music jarred, Hedda’s legs knocked into his knee, his hand on her back felt the stickiness of sweat. Was it hers or his?

  She sensed something. Hedda could always sense something. She had somehow sensed he was a spy. What the hell was he doing with the wife of a Sturmbannführer in a nightclub full of SS officers? He tried to imagine Millie in the Kakadu and he couldn’t.

  She stepped back. One long, exquisitely plucked eyebrow arched inquisitively. ‘Theo?’

  He pulled himself together. He couldn’t allow sentiment to spoil his evening. ‘I think we need some more champagne, don’t you?’

  18

  Zossen, Germany, 13 November

  It had been a long, hard night with Hedda and Theo was feeling the fatigue. He could barely keep his eyes open as he drove the thirty kilometres south of Berlin to Zossen, which was the wartime command centre for the Wehrmacht. He had passed through the high-wire perimeter, two checkpoints and walked along boards laid over marshland to a large A-framed building, inside which he had taken a lift down to underground concrete corridors. There, in a tiny office, he had found Major Liss.

  Major Liss woke him up.

  Liss was an officer in the Foreign Armies West Intelligence Directorate. He was an artilleryman from Mecklenburg, so not one of the aristocratic Prussians from whom many of the general-staff officers were drawn, but he was a prize-winning horseman, and in the Wehrmacht that earned you respect. He was also highly intelligent and spoke English, French, Spanish and Italian.

  ‘Thank you for coming out here, Hertenberg. And for all the intelligence you have been providing us with over the last few weeks. As you will see, it has been very valuable.’

  ‘I am very glad to hear that, Herr Major.’

  Theo had never met Liss before. He had passed on the information Bedaux had been giving him to Colonel Oster, who then passed it to people at Armies West Intelligence to analyse. People like Major Liss.

  ‘Now, what I am going to tell you, what I am going to show you, is highly confidential,’ Liss said. ‘Colonel Oster has vouched for you. I have something for you to ask your contact. To ask it properly, and to understand the answer, you need to understand the question.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Major.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  Theo followed Liss through the warren. The tunnels were lined with concrete to protect them from Allied bombs, and telephone and electricity cables ran along the ceiling. They came to a large room in the middle of which was a table with a relief map of northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

  ‘We call this “the cowhide”,’ said Liss. ‘As you can see, we have marked the deployment of the French and British Armies, much of it with information given to us by you.’

  Theo looked at the map. Liss pointed out the French fortifications on the Maginot Line, then the French 2nd Army along the Meuse around Sedan, then the other French armies lined up along the Belgian border, and finally the British Expeditionary Force at the Channel coast near Calais and Dunkirk.

  ‘You are familiar with Case Yellow?’ Liss said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Theo. ‘It’s the plan for an offensive in the west. But I don’t know the current details. I assume it involves invading through Belgium and Holland.’

  ‘It does. Last week we played a war game in this room, trying out Case Yellow. I played the part of General Gamelin, the French commander-in-chief.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You see these two armies here?’ Liss pointed to two concentrations of units on the German border with Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The northern one, Army Group B, was much larger than the southern one, Army Group A.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. Army Group B thrusts through the flat country of Holland and Belgium, through Brussels and on into Flanders. The idea is to break through around Lille and Amiens and swing south to Paris. Army Group A moves west through the Ardennes forest to the Meuse near Sedan, and pins down the French armies there, protecting Army Group B’s flank.’

  ‘I see,’ said Theo. ‘And you say you fought this battle last week?’

  ‘We did,’ said Liss.

  ‘I have to ask the question,’ said Theo. ‘Who won?’

  ‘Army Group B broke through the Belgian army’s forward defences along the Albert Canal, and took Brussels. But then the French 7th Army moved north into Belgium, and met our forces here.’ Liss pointed to a gap between the River Dyle and the River Meuse near Namur. ‘As you have pointed out, the 7th Army is France’s strongest. So this is where the key battle is. Their tanks against our tanks.’

  ‘And we win?’

  ‘Not necessarily. They have as many tanks as we do. And their SOMUA S35 is as powerful as our Panzer Mark III. Coming up behind the 7th Army is the BEF. We get bogged down. We all get bogged down. It’s 1914 all over again. Or 1915.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Theo.

  ‘Yes. Of course there is some disagreement among the general staff as to what will happen. I think it’s fair to say that the Führer is more optimistic than General Halder.’

  ‘And your view?’ Theo asked.

  ‘My view is we get bogged down.’

  A return to the trench fighting of the last war was every German soldier’s nightmare. Probably every French soldier’s as well. ‘I thought our tanks would avoid that,’ said Theo. ‘A blitzkrieg, like Poland.’

  ‘The French have more tanks than the Poles, a lot more. And they are better tanks.’

  Theo examined the map. The little markers, each one a division, represented thousands of men soon to be propelled headlong at each other in Flanders. ‘So what is your request?’

  ‘I told you I played the role of General Gamelin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a difficult task,’ Liss said. ‘The difficulty isn’t working out what the French should do, but rather what they will do.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you just assume they pursue the best strategy?’ Theo asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because that’s not what the French do.’ Liss smiled. ‘When we invaded Poland we left only thirty-five divisions of reservists along our western border. The French had seventy-five divisions facing us and three thousand two hundred tanks. We had none. Not one. If the French had ordered an immediate armoured offensive, they would have smashed through the Siegfried Line within a fortnight. We would have lost the war.’

  It sounded extraordinary, but Theo believed Liss. He knew the results of a similar war game held in 1938, just before the impending invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs held up the German army long enough for the French armour to roll through the Rhineland. Germany lost the war within months. That was why General Beck and the others had been so desperate to topple Hitler back then.

  ‘So why didn’t the French generals just do that in September?’

  ‘It would never have entered their heads. More importantly, it would never enter the heads of the French politicians. Or the British. They have their Maginot Line, and their plans are to sit there and wait for us to attack them. I don’t think they realize even now how they could have won the war.’

  ‘All right,’ said Theo.

  ‘So what I need to know’, said Liss, ‘is what the French plan to do if and when we invade Belgium. We can see from their dispositions it’s clearly something they are expecting. In particular, what will the 7th Army do? That’s what I want you to find out. Then, next time we play this war game I can play Gamelin’s role more accurately. Can you do that?’

  ‘I can try,’ said Theo.

  ‘Thank you, Hertenberg,’ said Liss.

  Theo was about to leave, when he paused. ‘What about here?’ he said, pointing to the French border with Belgium along the Meuse. ‘The information I received was that the 2nd Army guarding this section is very
weak.’

  Liss smiled. ‘Yes. Of course the hills and forests of the Ardennes would slow up any armoured assault. But that is something we discussed. The Führer was particularly intrigued.’

  Despite himself, Theo couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride that the Führer himself was interested in the information he had provided.

  As he drove back to Berlin, Theo marvelled at his own inconsistency. On the one hand he prayed for Hitler to be removed. He dreaded a German victory over France and Britain, almost as much as the stalemate that Liss was predicting. On the other, he was helping Liss and the general staff craft a strategy that would smash the Allied armies. Both attitudes made sense. It was his bounden duty as an army officer to do all he could to help his country win a battle. It was also his duty as a good German and patriot to stop an evil madman destroying his country.

  But those two conceptions of his duty were contradictory. And Theo wasn’t sure how long he could deny that contradiction.

  That troubled him. It troubled him deeply.

  The Hague

  ‘Zijn deze plaatsen nog vrij?’

  Millie looked up at two Dutchmen, both about thirty, both good-looking. She and Constance were having a cup of coffee in the Passage, an elegant shopping arcade just opposite the Binnenhof parliamentary citadel.

  ‘We do not speak Dutch. We are English,’ she replied in that language.

  The shorter of the two men smiled. ‘No matter. I can speak English and I can translate for Jan.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Millie smiled politely. ‘We are waiting for someone. He will be here any moment.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the English speaker, his face regretful. ‘I apologize for troubling you.’ They withdrew and found themselves a seat in the opposite corner of the café.

  ‘Pity,’ said Constance. ‘They looked rather nice.’

  ‘Better than some of the oafs that have approached us over the last couple of days,’ said Millie.

  It was hardly surprising that she and Constance had drawn attention. Constance was an attractive woman, and Millie was used to dealing with strange men wanting to start conversations with her. Actually, Constance had proved to be a more amusing travel companion than Millie had expected. She and Millie were very different, but Constance had a general zest for life that was catching. They had spent a couple of days wandering around The Hague, and Constance had been bowled over by the paintings in the Mauritshuis. Millie had the impression that Constance’s enthusiasm for the Rembrandts and Vermeers was all the more rapturous because this was the first time she had ever ventured into an art gallery.

  They had talked a lot, but Constance’s background remained sketchy. She had grown up in Cheshire and then moved to London with her mother to stay with relatives after her father had died, but beyond that Constance had revealed little. She gushed about her handsome husband, a naval officer, but then she also gushed about handsome Dutchmen they bumped into in The Hague.

  ‘So who is this man we are meeting?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Otto Langebrück,’ said Constance. ‘Works for Herr von Ribbentrop, who is an old friend of Henry’s.’

  ‘And Foreign Minister, isn’t he?’ said Millie.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Millie frowned. ‘Should we be negotiating with the enemy’s government? I mean, shouldn’t that come through official channels?’

  ‘Official channels?’ Constance snorted. ‘You know what Chamberlain is like. He’s too stubborn to negotiate with anyone. That’s why we are here, Millie. That’s why Sir Henry and your father sent us.’

  ‘Yes, but Chamberlain is Prime Minister, isn’t he? I’m not sure we should be going behind his back.’ Millie realized she was beginning to sound like her brother.

  ‘I loathe Chamberlain,’ said Constance, her eyes alight. ‘He’s the one who got us into this stupid war. Have you read Rogue Male?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. Came out in the summer, didn’t it?’

  ‘You should read it. It’s brilliant. There’s just one problem. The hero at the beginning is trying to shoot a European dictator who is obviously supposed to be Hitler. He should have been trying to shoot Chamberlain. Now that would have been worth doing.’

  ‘You are not serious?’ Millie said.

  ‘I certainly am,’ said Constance. ‘I’d do it. Especially if it would stop this war.’

  Millie glanced at her companion. She didn’t seem exactly fanatical, more matter-of-fact. An odd girl, Constance.

  ‘I think this must be him,’ whispered Constance as a well-dressed man of about thirty approached them.

  ‘Mrs Scott-Dunton? Miss de Lancey? Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Otto Langebrück. May I join you?’

  ‘Please do, Mr Langebrück,’ said Millie.

  The man oozed charm as he took the third chair around the table. His English was very good. ‘Herr von Ribbentrop sends his compliments to you and to Sir Henry.’

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘Sadly, not. I do not have much time. I believe you have a message for Herr von Ribbentrop?’

  ‘I do,’ said Constance. She opened her bag and pulled out an envelope, and handed it to Langebrück, who slid it into his breast pocket without opening it.

  ‘We will be staying here for three days more if there is a reply,’ Millie said. ‘As I’m sure you know, my father is Lord Oakford. I would be happy to pass on any message to him or Sir Henry Alston.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Constance. ‘You’d better speak directly to me. I know Sir Henry a little better than my friend.’

  Langebrück glanced at the two women. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I will leave a message at your hotel if I have anything. Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Kurhaus in Scheveningen.’

  ‘I will be in touch.’

  ‘Sorry about that, Millie,’ said Constance with an embarrassed smile when Langebrück was safely out of the café. ‘But Henry did give me strict instructions what to say when we hear back from him.’

  Millie didn’t answer. She now knew why Constance was with her: to act as an envoy for Sir Henry Alston with the Nazi government. Presumably Father knew about this. But the guilt weighed down on her. What would Conrad think if he found out what she and Constance had done? Or Theo, for that matter?

  That she should be torn between what her brother and her father expected was nothing new for Millie. But she cared what Theo thought. She cared very much.

  Paris

  The bar was warm, smoky and crowded. It had been a long train journey from Holland and Conrad was tired. He was also late.

  He scanned the tables and saw the man he was looking for wedged in a corner reading a book, an almost empty carafe of red wine next to him. Conrad made his way over to him.

  ‘Hello, Warren. I’m glad I didn’t miss you.’

  The American looked up and shot to his feet, pumping Conrad’s hand. He was shorter than Conrad with floppy hair that hung down over his eyes, and a wide amiable smile that showed off gleaming teeth. ‘No chance of that. I can keep myself amused here for hours. We need more wine.’ He waved a waiter over.

  ‘It’s good to see a friendly face,’ said Conrad. And Warren’s was a very friendly face. Conrad had met him at Oxford almost ten years before. Warren’s ambition had always been to become a novelist, but after a couple of years floundering in Paris, he had secured a job as a junior foreign correspondent for a Chicago newspaper. He had spent the last few years in Berlin and Prague, and had now returned to Paris, covering the war.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Warren asked. ‘I thought it was impossible for British officers to get leave in Paris?’

  ‘It may be,’ said Conrad. ‘I wouldn’t know. My unit is still in England.’

  ‘That explains nothing,’ said Warren.

  Warren’s inquisitiveness didn’t surprise Conrad; he was a journalist after all.

  ‘I’m here on some semi-official business,’ said Conrad. />
  ‘Ah,’ said Warren. ‘I understand.’

  Conrad realized that Warren had immediately assumed he was doing something in intelligence. Which he supposed was true, sort of. The good thing about Warren’s assumption was that he wouldn’t expect further explanation.

  ‘How’s Paris?’ Conrad asked.

  ‘It’s great to be back,’ Warren said. ‘Although I’m getting a bit sick of this drôle de guerre. It would be good to report on some real fighting. Still, it has given me time to work on my novel.’

  Conrad noticed that the book Warren was reading was To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway, Warren’s hero. Rereading it, probably.

  ‘Have you read Scoop yet?’ Conrad asked. ‘It’s brilliant.’

  Within seconds they had slotted back into the old familiar argument of Hemingway versus Evelyn Waugh. They talked about Paris, about Warren’s nascent novel, about the war and whether the Americans would join it. Conrad resisted the temptation to rag Warren for trying to live the cliché of the American writer in Paris. He had attempted to write his own novel while in Berlin, but given up after two chapters, and his occasional journalism for the magazine Mercury was nothing compared to Warren’s efforts.

  They ordered another carafe. The warmth of the bar, Warren’s friendliness and the wine relaxed Conrad, so he felt something of a jolt when Warren reminded him of his reason for being there.

  ‘OK, Conrad, what’s this semi-official business?’ Warren asked. ‘And what do I have to do with it? I assume I have something to do with it?’

  ‘You do,’ said Conrad. ‘If you are willing. I’m trying to find out about someone. An American who lives in Paris.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Warren, his eyes lighting up with interest. ‘And who might that be?’

  ‘A fellow called Bedaux. Charles Bedaux. A wealthy businessman. You know him?’

  ‘You bet I do,’ said Warren.

  ‘Can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Sure. He was born here, but went over to America before the last war, to Michigan, I think. Invented his own time-and-motion system and made a fortune at it. He has companies all over Europe as well as America, although they hate him there. He fancies himself as something of an explorer: he went on a big expedition in the Yukon a few years ago.’